


Every stone now turned

by Lionessinthedark



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Adoption, Anal Sex, Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Death, Ender's Game (book mentioned), F/M, M/M, Other people's past, Post-Episode: The Abominable Bride, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rimming, Sex, Sherlock (TV) Season/Series 04 Fix-it, Sherlock's Past, Suicidal Thoughts, The dying detective, The lying detective, happiness, not season 4 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8840518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionessinthedark/pseuds/Lionessinthedark
Summary: After season 3 and with a few snippets from season 4 blended in. But after BBC's season 4, my story is an AU. Mary and Sherlock are somewhere in a hospital. Very similar to when she threatened him after she had shot him, but we can see that they are older now. John is nowhere to be seen





	1. Domino

“How are you, Sherlock?”, asked Mary, sitting at a chair beside Sherlock's bed, actually holding his hand.

“I feel like shit.....and I think I'm dying for real now, Mary.”

“I know.”

“And ...I've run out of reasons to survive...”

“I know that too, Sherlock. But, if it is some sort of conciliation, I think John can survive your death now...”

“I agree....”

She paused and looked at the man in the bed. She had come to admire him, and she deeply regretted, that she had once tried to kill him. Maybe it was time to confess that now?

“You must know, Sherlock, than when you returned - I almost hated you. No, I _hated_ you, because you were going to take the only good thing, that had happened in my life for a very long time, away from me. And then you didn't do that, even if you could have done it. You stepped back....planned my wedding. Saved John's Major Sholto. And.......then I shot you!”

Sherlock smiled at her, “And you tried to kill me again in the hospital?”

“No!.....I tried to intimidate you. But then Magnussen came to the hospital and almost raped you. I heard every word he said, and then I understood. You would never be a rival to me. John likes sex too much...and even if you are like a drug to him....”

Sherlock continued, “I can never be what he needs. Even if he should finally admit that he is bi-sexual and that he secretly dreams of kissing me and shagging me through the mattress.”

Then Sherlock shuddered, “Oh....sex. Two naked sweating bodies - all those bodily fluids. And male intercourse. So unsanitary! No....it would never come true. I am asexual and even if I'm romantically in love with John, I would never engage in sex. It appals me......”

“So when Mycroft said that you are alarmed by sex, he was right?”, wanted Mary to know.

Sherlock's features darkened and he turned his head away.

“I had stored it away. The things that had been done to me.”

He turned his head again and looked at Mary, “You do know, that I was not even his real brother? I'm an experiment. A freak....a living human computer. My mother is not my mother, my father is not my father and my brothers were not my brothers. . I'm the first experimental child....born at Baskerville. Created in a laboratory. And things might have been a lot easier if they hadn't made me of a material that made me...handsome, fascinating and with the body of a Greek God. I do know how I look Mary. There are mirrors........and I looked like an angel, growing up. That is why......”

Sherlock stopped and he had tears in his eyes.

Mary took his hand, “I know what they did to you: Sherrinford, Mycroft …and Culverton. I know. That is why they are all dead know.....”

But it was as if Sherlock hadn't heard her. He was back in his own memories. Back in his Mind Palace.

He hadn't known why that man had always had come to talk to him...and not to Sherrinford or to Mycroft. He had not understood, why _he_ should be home-tutored and his brothers not. Oh yes.....his first days in Kindergarten had been very unpleasant....a catastrophe actually. But Sherrinford and Mycroft had managed.

And he didn't like the exercises. All the things he should remember and if he failed, Culverton would do something unpleasant so the helmet Sherlock was wearing, would hurt and he would have a terrible headache afterwards.

And Mycroft and Sherrinford should never wear that helmet and never do those mental exercises.

But then Sherrinford had told that they had done that too, when they were younger. It was how it was supposed to be. And Sherlock had accepted it.

And it got easier to do the things, he was ordered to. He learned to organise his memories and finally the year he turned 9, Culverton had announced, that Sherlock 'was finished'...what ever that had meant...and it took many years before Sherlock saw him again.

__________________

“Sherlock!....Sherlock!”

Mary's voice brought him back to this 'now'.....

“Sorry, I was a bit lost in my memories..” , said Sherlock with an apologetic smile.

Mary smiled back, “You don't have to apologize. And what they did to you. All the grown ups surrounding you. How could they? You were a child!”

And she thought about Rosie and felt fiercely protective of her and continued, “....How could she? Violet Holmes? How could she not love you, even if you were the result of an experiment. For God's sake. You were a child!”

“They never saw me that way......and especially not after........”

Sherlock's voice faltered and he closed his eyes.

“After Sherrinford died..?, asked Mary.

Sherlock just nodded.

Then he took a deep breath and looked at Mary, “I can tell you, because you can keep a secret. And somehow it would be nice to know that someone knows why I shot Mycroft......and Culverton..”

“I'm all ears, Sherlock.”

“The summer where I had turned 9 in January and Culverton had announced in spring that I 'was ready', mummy and father attended a seminar and left us 3 boys alone at home. Well...'boys' is not the right word as Mycroft was 16 and Sherrinford was 19.”

Sherlock took a deep breath before he continued and Mary gave his hand a squeeze.

“ThatsummerIwasrepeatedlydruggedandrapedbymyeldestbrother”, Sherlock blurted as if the sentence was one long word.

But Mary had heard and understood, “Oh..Sherlock.”, she said.

“Mycroft thought for a long time, that I didn't remember. And he should have protected me!The way my mind is and the experimental way I store memories, means that certain words can trigger a memory and certain words can delete them as well. Or at least, that was the way the scientists, amongst them Culverton, thought that my mind worked. I can't really explain it. We do not have words for it and I've tried to explain it to others. But my mind is like huge houses in a landscape and....and I can 'live' in one of those 'houses'. Create a rather convincing world in there. With touch, sound, taste and....almost everything...”

“As you did on the plane as you went back in time...”

“Exactly...and sometimes it helps me solve cases. And the scientists, who have monitored me for years, didn't mind that I 'played' a detective, because it wouldn't interfere with the governmental secrets, which were stored in my mind as well.

But every time I tried to kill myself, or at least to numb myself with drugs, Mycroft got deeply worried, because that knowledge would die together with me. Sherrinford had raped my body...and Mycroft abused my mind!”

Sherlock paused before he huffed, “And he dared to say to me that 'the loss of you would break my heart'. What he didn't know, though, was that that explicit phrase started a chain-reaction in my mind and finally opened op all the secret vaults, that 'they' had put in there. But not all at once. There would be other key-words as well and just like domino-tiles, where only one is pushed and finally everyone is turned and tilted, it all ended with 'every stone turned' and every secret revealed. Everything that happened to me, every false memory, every governmental secret that I had stored, after having listened for hours to recordings and tapes...everything was turned upside-down and I was finally free...or sort of. ”

“And then what.....what happened?”

“It was not only words that could trigger a memory. Drugs...chemicals were involved too. Some of them injected to reinforce the memory-process and some to 'delete'. Just that...'delete' never really worked. Just stored the memory. Sort of in caves under my 'landscapes'. If it makes any sense? And now I remembered almost everything...or at least had access to it.”

Mary listened and then she nodded, “Yes...it makes sense.”

Sherlock smiled. Even if he really didn't know if he totally could trust Mary, she was at least so intelligent, that it was a pleasure talking to her....and what harm could she do him? He was dying anyway.

“But with all these memories on their loose, I do not know any more which are real and which are false. Let me give you an example: I know I planned your wedding and I know that Major Sholto was attending and that someone tried to murder him. But on the other hand: I have a clear memory of you giving birth under a rainstorm, and that while I was driving and we ended up in a tunnel and there was a lot of water.”

Mary frowned and said, “That is crazy. I gave birth in a hospital and you were even outside the room giving support to John. The only true part was that it rained and you were the one who drove the car to get us to the maternity ward. Why would the scientists give you such false memories? And when did they do that?”

Sherlock did hide his head in his hands, “I don't know! I've lost hours and afternoons. Thinking I was on the couch, but in reality I had been fetched and had implanted memories. I would always have a headache afterwards.....and why should I get a terrible headache just lying on the couch?!”

They sat in silence, or rather Mary sat and Sherlock was lying and then Mary said, “You can tell me to bugger off …or you could tell me what happened that summer and get it out of your system...”

Sherlock just looked at her and she thought for a moment that he wouldn't say a word.

 

But then he took a deep breath and he began, “Sherrinford took the initiative and was the active part, but neither he nor Mycroft were the idea-maker behind it. It must have been Culverton. The way he looked at me. The way he let his hand rest on my thigh just a little bit too long. He wasn't present as it happened though. At least I do not have memories of that, but they can have been tampered with any way. And my memories are scattered and not complete. But I do remember the metallic taste of my breakfast, showing that it had been drugged. Then the floating feeling and then a lot of things....dreamlike. But no matter how bad a nightmare you have...it doesn't leave you with a puffed, sore and red sphincter and sometimes it would be bleeding slightly. Nor does it leave you with a sore throat and the taste of semen in your mouth. I never new what that taste was...until I was old enough to have wet dreams and smelled that body fluid again. And as I smelled it, I had just time to run out into the bathroom to vomit in the toilet.”

“So, those hidden memories - they made you hate sex? That makes sense.”, said Mary.

“Yeah...but don't think I can be 'cured'. I have no wish for that! I am fine having no sexual urges.”

“Understandable.”

They looked at each other and then Sherlock closed his eyes, “I did remember enough to want revenge. But not until a few years after. I was 15 at that time. Mycroft was away and Sherrinford had been visiting and had been to town and was drunk, as he returned. It wasn't me who started the fire, but I didn't try to get back into the house to save Sherrinford, as I discovered the fire. I saved my violin and did hide in the garden-shed, where they found me. For a long time, they thought that I had started the fire and father and mummy refused to talk to me. I was 'high', when they found me. Not my doing, someone had drugged me. And I was sent to a rehabilitation-centre. I now know who put the house on fire and actually killed Sherrinford, but I can't prove it was Culverton. But Sherrinford had refused to follow their plans...I knew that much. I had heard him and Mycroft argue. Not that much of it made sense. But very little made sense in those days...so why not a strange argument between my brothers?”

Sherlock closed his eyes, “I'm not dying right now. I'm just tired. Please...let me sleep. You can come back in both of you, as soon as John returns.”

“Fine, Sherlock. We'll return later in a couple of hours”, said Mary and left. Sherlock was already asleep.

__________________

 


	2. Working together

A few hours later John returned to the hospital. Bringing some papers with him. Computer out-prints. And facsimiles of old journals from the governmental Baskerville Facility.

Mary met him in the hall.

 

“You found it?”, she asked.

 

“Yeah...and you are not going to believe what I found. Neither is he. How is he?”

 

Mary looked at John and settled for the truth, “Dying. He doesn't want to reveal the substance, he has taken. He think the world would be a better place without him. And he is confused and disoriented. No wonder when you think about what first Culverton did to him, and then what Sherrinford and Mycroft did.”

 

John sat down, “I...I cant loose him!”

 

Mary looked at him, “You might have to get used to that. He doesn't want to live like this, John. And I can't blame him!”

 

John looked at her, not really knowing what to do. “I...I just can't.”

 

“You might have to. He thinks that he knows, that he can never be what you need. For God's sake John. Sherlock is asexual. The mere thought of sex makes him almost vomit...and no wonder!”

 

And then Mary told John what had happened to Sherlock.

 

“But...no offence, Mary, but you are not the woman I married and I'm not going to stay with you....” said John. There was no reason not to be honest now.

 

“And I know that you only forgave me because of Rosie. And you only chose me because you had lost Sherlock and that's my role, isn't it? Holding you together when he breaks you? Or the circumstances around him breaks you. He loves you with all his heart, no matter how much he unintentionally hurts you and he tries so hard to keep you with me. You still think he killed Magnussen for my benefit. But it wasn't. He did it for you, John. He saved me for you, because he wants us to be together. Not because it is what I want, but because _he_ thinks he knows, that I'm what you need."

"He's wrong."

“I _know_ he is wrong. You'll have to convince him, before it is too late. You'll have to tell him. We have hurt him so much. Both of us. Almost everybody has hurt him. He doesn't think anyone cares about HIM, and think he has only value as a 'machine', as a detective, and not because he is just him.”

John remembered the things he'd told her back when they'd thought Sherlock was dead and the things had had been a long list of Sherlock's flaws and failures. Sherlock's inability to feel the pain of others, and his total disregard for John's feelings. But none of it was true. John knew that now. Mary knew that too. Sherlock was so unsure of their friendship. More than John had ever been, even as Sherlock had left him, making John believe that Sherlock had killed himself. That was going to change.

 

“But I _do_ love him!”, said John.

 

“And he loves you, in the way he is able to do. Romantically.....but in no way 'in flesh'. If you can't accept that, you'll have to let him go. He is in such agony!”

 

“Let's go and talk to him. Maybe I can persuade him not to die for me...again...but to _live_ for me. I'm sorry Mary. But I can finally admit that I do love and care deeply for him...”

 

“I know...and the funny thing is that I do that too, but he is so tormented right now. What he has told me is so terrible...and he can't distinguish between his false memories and the real ones and it is tearing him apart. He is loosing his mind, John!”

_____________________________

Sherlock was asleep as John and Mary entered. And John had to stop and look at the other man for just a moment. Sherlock looked so much younger in his sleep. But it was easy to see how much the events of the last years had taken their toll on him. He was so thin. Even thinner than when John saw him the first time. The first grey hairs were to be seen at his temples...and if he didn't came more to his senses and admitted what substance he had taken, he would get even thinner and finally die.

 

And John wouldn't have any of that...not now. It was bad enough with Rosie being that ill, and scans had shown that there were other things wrong with her in her internal organs, too. Maybe it would be the best if little Rosie.....

 

And right there John stopped his thoughts. Mary would leave in a short while to go to Rosie's hospital and John and Sherlock would have a chance to talk.

  


Mary had accepted that their marriage, that hadn't been real after all, had ended, even if they were sort of friends now. She had used her remarkable skills to help investigating Sherlock's past and accepted that John finally admitted, that what he felt for Sherlock couldn't be compared to what he felt for Mary...or rather Anne-Gretha, as her real name was. But John kept calling her Mary...and so did Sherlock. They had got used to the name...and didn't mind calling her that, especially after her almost killing Sherlock had been settled and almost forgiven. It had taken some time before she had admitted that she had shot Sherlock out of panic.

  
“I did not panic!”, had Mary said and her expression and her tone of voice had been so similar to Sherlock's at Baskerville, that John had burst into laughter. And as Sherlock and Mary looked at him with the exactly same expression of confusion on their faces, it had taken John several minutes...wheezing of laughter, to tell what had been so funny.

  
Later John and Mary had talked. It had been an awkward conversation, late one night, at the hospital, where Rosie was admitted shortly after her christening and just after Sherlock had been abducted...and returned again.

John had been sleep-deprived and almost insane with worry over Rosie... and Sherlock... and both John and Mary had admitted to each other, after some yelling on both sides, that they maybe cared for each other, but there hadn't been love for a long time. If ever. And both John and Mary had marvelled at Sherlock's willingness to forgive Mary.

John had admitted that the only reason for him to forgive Mary and not shooting her right on the spot in Leinster Garden, was that Sherlock had asked him to forgive her.

And John told that he had forgiven her that Christmas, because Sherlock had asked him to do so...and John genuinely had believed that Sherlock had had some cunning plans.

And Mary had admitted that the only reason for Mycroft not to have her killed, because she had almost killed 'his valuable computer-device', was that she knew to much about too many governmental secrets....and had put them in a safe place to be revealed if she should die a suspicious death.

___________________

And then Mary and John had worked together to save Sherlock. They strongly felt that they owed him everything.....and John came to appreciate Mary’s skills and she appreciated John's skills as well. Apologizing for not seeing those qualities a bit before.

“I saw the cuddly doctor and forgot the soldier.”, as she admitted.

____________________

And now John had come to the hospital with the results of Mary's investigations. Some rather disturbing results and so strange that they were hardly to be believed.

John and Mary sat down outside Sherlock's room and read it together.

 

“Incredible”, said John afterwards, “But it explains so much...”

 


	3. The diaries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter this time. A lot of strange coincidences....And we know what Sherlock says about coincidences and the Universe...
> 
> New tags added.
> 
> And the Baskerville's family-tree is totally made up by me. There are going to be a few surprises in that.

As Sherlock woke again he found John sitting on a chair beside the bed.

“Please, Sherlock. Don't die on me again...” John said and had grappled for Sherlock's hand and had continued, “Rosie.....” and he swallowed, “......she is probably not going to make it. And maybe we should be thankful for that. Her life would not be easy...”

Sherlock looked at John with a frown, “And that should be reason enough to wish for her not continuing her life?”

Sherlock turned his head away and took his hand away from John's.

“No Sherlock. You misunderstand....I know that your life hasn't been easy either. But right now.....” John grappled for Sherlock's hand again, “Right now you choose the 'easy' way out too. As if you believe that it wouldn't affect anyone at all, if you died!”

“Who would care?!!”, Sherlock almost shouted, being a bit surprised himself how violently he reacted.

“I would. I'm not sure I would have the strength to survive again, if I lost you!”

And then the two men looked at each other. Now John had finally said it. But being English they chose...again.....not to 'mention the elephant in the room' and John just cleared his throat and said, “You should really read what these papers tell about you.”

 

And Sherlock's curiosity was big enough to just listen to what John had to tell about those papers and not think so much about what John's words really had meant.

John showed Sherlock the ancient journals and papers and explained that they told the strangest story and John asked Sherlock just to look at the material, because he would understand later.

“First we have Mary Shelly's diary here.”, told John, “She died at the age of 53, but had time to bring her things in order before that happened.” and then John showed Sherlock the photos from the authentic diary. There were bits and pieces in Mary Shelly's original handwriting, known from the manuscript of '”Frankenstein...or the modern Prometheus” and the there were bits and pieces from another book. Partly ruined and destroyed.

Sherlock began to read from the diary:

“ _I'm dying now. And I know I am, despite what the doctors say. And I want to confess something before I die. People always think that I invented the story about Victor Frankenstein and his creature. But I confess now that the story, that made me famous, had not originated from my own fantasy and had not been hatched in a house near the Geneva lake. The story took its beginning as I found a book, a journal, on the moors in the Northern Part of England. Near the castle of *********. And I can now confess that the the man I called 'Victor Frankenstein' in my story was no other than 'Sir Thomas of **********.'_ ”

Sherlock looked up with a frown and John said, “Just continue! It is getting better.”

Sherlock continued to read what Mary Shelley had written: “ _I had found his journal on the moor. Apparently just dropped and lost and the things and descriptions, I found in them, were so horrifying and terrible, that they left an unmovable imprint on my young soul. I had to try to tell the story, but I didn't dare to tell about the real man behind those discoveries, nor about the true nature of his....creation. The parts of the journal, that could give away the exact method of his discoveries and his method of re-animating dead things..... So simple and yet so advanced....of course I burned those descriptions in the fire in my room and as I 'invented' my story, I changed a lot. I changed it so much, that no one would be able to guess the method or the true identity of the scientist, until now. And even now, I'm hiding this information in this diary and refuse to write the exact location and the full name of that scientist. And later I will place my books in the vaults under my bank, so it wouldn't be known to the public until long after my death...”_

Sherlock frowned again, “But the public never learned?”

“No....because it was found out by the very people, who wanted it to be a total secret. Mary Shelly died before she had a chance to put the writings in her bank-box. Mary...our Mary...has hacked into systems to find this...and found it. So please, read on.”

“ _I found it just before Sir Thomas ******** left for an expedition in 1816. I know now, why he left and I will tell more about it later. I was close to my 18th year as I found the journal in 1815 and I began to read it the very same afternoon I found it, sitting in my room and I continued to read, breathless, until the morning light entered my room in the morning. It was a story of greatness and tragedy...and without an end that could be deemed satisfying as the journal of course stopped abruptly, since the owner lost it. That last part of my story is pure invention from my side. As is a lot of what happened to the creature, that Sir Thomas couldn't know about. Right now I'm going to let his journal tell his story in the bits and pieces I've allowed to exist and not be burned.”_

And now Sherlock read from the parts of the journal. Sir Thomas *********** had been a scientist and very interested in electricity and all the new discoveries and inventions in the beginning of the 19 th  century. He had begun with frogs, then small mammals and finally sheep. And he had managed to re-animate them, as he called it. First he had killed them and left them for a few days. The he had applied his processes and had seen that they awoke again, and they began to function. Not forever as they would deteriorate again after a few days and return to the dead state.

“Oh..”, said Sherlock, “He invented the Zombies?!”

“It is getting better, “, said John.

And Sherlock continued, now in Mary's diary: “ _I've burned the pages where he described the process, where he finally managed to keep the animals alive after the re-animation. It had something to do with basins of different solutions, in which the objects should be lying for hours and then finally electricity. I left out the part with the basins and the solutions and kept the part with electricity, but exaggerated it and made 'Victor Frankenstein' use the immense powers from lightnings to bring his creature to life. And then Sir Thomas confessed in his journal that he wanted to try his process on a human being. And he managed. And of course Sir Thomas didn't make such a hideous creature as the one, I described in my story. The man, he used for his experiment, was a 'John Doe'. Recently drowned and found on the coast. Almost naked and with his skin destroyed on some parts of his body, because he had been thrown against the cliffs. Sir Thomas had made some drawings of the poor soul, before he began his 'work' on him and the man was good looking, even if he did lack half of his skin on his head. His naked skull could be seen just above his eyes and his jaw was broken. But one could never the less see that he must have been a noble-man with that fine bone-structure. And then there was another drawing of the man after Sir Thomas had tried to restore the missing parts. I can say so much, that even if Sir Thomas was a doctor, he would never become a surgeon. He hadn't done the man any favour and his 'reparations' had left the man slightly disfigured and almost totally bald. His cranium was never the less coved in skin again, but with big and visible scars. The page with those drawings was rather destroyed, but I've put it in my diary never the less.”_

And then there was a photo of two blurred drawings made on torn and discoloured pieces of paper.

(Imagine Benedict in make-up as Frankenstein's creature)

Sherlock touched the photos with his index finger and remarked, “It is strange. He looks a bit like me despite all the scars...”

“It is getting even more strange, Sherlock. Just continue reading..”, said John.

“ _I've burned the next pages as well. There is no reason to upset people, who had lost dear ones around that time, by telling them how Sir Thomas got the rest of the skin and in some places even muscle-tissue to re-build the man. The skeleton was intact though, so there was no reason for re-building there. Sir Thomas made a drawing of the finished body, but the page was so destroyed by water and mud that it was impossible to save. I could only see the outlines of the drawing and only hints of where the body had had to be repaired and the text written on the pages didn't give much away. Only Sir Thomas' disappointment about the looks of the man. Sir Thomas had imagined something perfect, but his own lack of skills had left the body with hideous scars. He even thought about aborting the process and 'kill' the man again after he had put the body through some of the processes. But his curiosity got the better of him and he continued....”_

Sherlock had now reached the part of Sir Thomas' journal:

Sir Thomas described how he had been in doubt and how he had continued never the less.......and how horrified he had been as the 'monster' as he himself had described it, came to the final stages of life. Sir Thomas had hoped to see intelligence in those eyes, but he had written:

…..... _It is so disgusting! Beyond imagination! The scars twist and turn in its face and drags the mouth, where I haven't managed to put the jaw totally right, into spasmodic convulsions. This monster can't walk, can't talk and is just crawling around, dragging itself around by its arms. I should never have tried with a man! God help me. I've created a demon! I started beating it as it came close to me, trying to talk. It was a moving corpse! I fled in horror!”_

And there the journal ended and Mary's diary continued:

“ _The next pages were only fragments and after I had read them, they almost fell apart and there was no way that I could put them besides the other pages of Sir Thomas' journal. They became mash as I tried to touch them again. But I could read that much that after he had fled, Sir Thomas had returned to his laboratory, only to discover that the creature had managed to escape out into the moors. The rest of my story and how it ended is based on rumours and a newspaper article, dated about a year later. It told about Sir Thomas and an expedition he was going to be a part of. In reality the re-animated man could have fallen into one of the bottomless lakes in the moor, or he could just have plainly died (again) hidden under a bush. But as you can understand, the things I had learned about, kept swirling around in my head and I used is as an inspiration for my story about 'Victor Frankenstein' two years later.”_

Sherlock looked up in confusion, “What has the origin of Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein' got to do with me?”

“Read the next texts, Sherlock....” was John's answer.

And Sherlock read the newspaper articles and the hand-scripted notes that were lying under the photos of Mary Shelley's diary.

 

They told a story about rumours about a strange man living on the moor. About a village where everybody had been contaminated and died, except from one man and then about the expedition to the North with participation of the 'recently widowed Lord Thomas Baskerville, who had lost his son in the same accident, where Sir Thomas'  wife had died'....

Sherlock looked at John, “The mad scientist, who had made that creature, was Sir Thomas Baskerville?!”

“The forefather of Sir Victor Baskerville, the founder of the Baskerville Facilities. Yes...that Sir Thomas.”, said John and continued as he pointed at the papers, “Sir Thomas must have died around 1817, if we can believe the informations stated in some of the later sources. You will get to them later. He had another son, born in 1810. Sir Percival Baskerville. A well-known doctor, despite that he was a lord as well. Sir Percival's son Victor was born in 1865 and Sir Percival died in 1890. And now it gets interesting again. Sir Victor was participant in an expedition in 1920, where they tried to find the HMS Southshire, that had vanished in the Arctic Sea near the end of WW1.”

“Yeah, I've read about that HMS Southshire. From the shipyard 'Tollerton'. A new experimental ship, but still with steam-engines, made for warfare in the Arctic Ocean. A totally stupid idea at that time. The steam-engines on board such a ship wouldn't be strong enough to force the ship through the ice..and they had furthermore failed to construct the ship in such a way that it could withstand the pressure from the ice. It was only a year after that, that a competitive company, The Braynard Yard, had succeeded in making a stronger ship, that could actually sail through the ice.” explained Sherlock.

And John just smiled. Of course Sherlock had known about that ship.

“What?”, frowned Sherlock, “I needed that knowledge for a case!”

“Of course you did. Just read on.”

And Sherlock read the next pages. They were from a diary. Sir Victor Baskerville's diary. In some parts written very short and formal and in some other parts more elaborately written and only the interesting parts had been included:

“ _20_ _th_ _of May 1920: We arrived at Alexandra Land the 19_ _th_ _of May 1920. And immediately found out that it was the right place. We managed to get a longboat up on the shore on the southern side of the island and it wasn't bigger than we from the highest point could see the wreck of the HMS Southshire still lying captured by the ice close to the northern side of the island. The wreck had been partly destroyed by a huge explosion, of which tracks still could be seen on the snow nearby, as it had been coloured black. There were still tracks of traffic to and from the vessel...footprints and traces of something heavier being dragged over the snow. And unfortunately a bit too many footprints from polar-bears too. That didn't bode well for the castaways.”_

“ _22_ _nd_ _of May 1920:_ _We have found the cave in which they have almost managed to survive this whole winter. I have to write 'almost' because the sight that met our eyes, as we entered the cave, made us all stay silent in horror. They were all dead. All 14 men that had made it to the shore. And they had managed to live through the winter on the supplies, that they had managed to get from the ship before the explosion happened. If we had arrived only 8 days before, some of them might still have been alive. The attack of the group of young male polar-bears had been in two rounds as far as we could determine. But now the men were all dead from their injuries. To our big surprise there were traces of an even older tragedy, as we found items belonging to an older ship. A Bark called “Bravery” as we found some sea chests and other items from that ship and then I suddenly remembered that my grandfather, Sir Thomas Baskerville, had indeed sailed with a ship with that name and had disappeared. Had I found the cave in which he had died?.....”_

_25_ _th_ _of May 1920: It is a miracle! There was still one man alive! As we looked further into that cave and brought light to a place that hadn't been lit by sunlight since the dawn of days, we discovered the corpse of a man, partly destroyed as a polar-bear had clawed on the poor dead man. We wondered why it had tried to get the dead and totally frozen man away, and decided to remove him and look further behind him. And we found what we thought to be another corpse. A man that had been terribly wounded and who appeared to have been stitched together here on the island with whatever a doctor could find. The wounds had healed, but had left him with terrible scars. He was intact though and we carried him out of the cave and put him beside the other dead men. He had seemed to be frozen solid, but we must have been mistaken, because after a while he began to stir and one of the other men discovered that he had eye-movements behind his closed eye-lids. He was in a state of hypothermia as he felt so cold to our touch, so cold as if he had been a corpse and he was very pale, almost blue. We decided to get him on board our ship as fast as possible and see if we could save him, with the meagre means we had on board. At least we now know how to thaw people slowly and do not try to save frozen people by rubbing them with snow!”....._

_10_ _th_ _of July 1920: “I don't know if it was our skills or the robustness of this man, since he had survived his terrible injuries and had even manage to heal living in that cave under such unsanitary circumstances, or because the Good Lord had decided that he should survive. But against all odds he did survive and that even without loosing fingers or toes. He just lost his nails, but they will regrow. He has brain-damage though, as he cannot speak yet or remember anything. But there is intelligence to be seen in his eyes, even if he cannot speak or make himself understandable by writing. He can't control his movements enough to write and we can see that it frustrates him. One of our youngest members has found a solution though. He has carved the letters of the alphabet out in a piece of wood and the man can now spell what he wants to say by pointing at the letters. In the beginning his spelling was hideous, but as time passed he got better and better. He told us that he couldn't remember much. Not his name and where he came from. Just that he had been on a ship that got caught in the ice. He remembered an explosion, that had wounded him severely. He remembered the pain as one of the doctors stitched him together and how they had all given him of the supply of liquor to ease his pain. He had tried to smile and had painstakingly written “By ruining my liver....”_

“ _28_ _th_ _of August 1920: As we returned to England, he was much better. He could now walk and talk, but not without difficulties, but he still looked horrible and he was suggested to be taken to a place near my home, where they had facilities to help him heal. He was trained and at a point one of the doctors offered him an operation, that could make him look more 'human' as one of them said. He agreed as soon as he found out, that he could be sedated and wouldn't feel a thing during the operation. After the operation and after he had healed, he didn't look worse than some of the young men, that had returned from the war. Yes...he looked even better as he had all his limbs and over the next months he learned to walk and talk even better. He managed to heal so much that he just had a small limp and a slight tremor of his hands. He did have a speech-impairment that persisted: he did talk as if he had been from another century. He laughed at that himself and said, “Have you ever heard about that?”......And I had, but it was an American woman who had got a French accent after a minor brain damage.......”_

Now the diary did jump almost a year in the dates and Sherlock noticed that, “Why this jump in time?”

John shook his head, “We don't know. It was like that in the box that Mary found and even if she searched for more a lot of places, nothing more was to be found. Just read on, Sherlock.”

Sherlock pointed at the stack of papers, “I have a suspicion about where this is going and the connections, but that is impossible!”

“Just read on...”, said John.

And Sherlock read, “ _25_ _th_ _of August 1921: It is now a year ago since we found 'Thomas' on Alexandra Land. We have called him Thomas, since it was the first name he showed a bit reaction to, when he was rescued. There is still something strange about him and I can't put my finger on it. We asked him of course, why he had hidden like that in the cave and he told us that he had been there in the back of the cave, which would be the warmest place, if you had a fire. He had been in pain and had looked around to find something to distract him. He was the one who had discovered the old sea chests and their contents of old-fashioned but still very warm clothing and had shared his discovery with the others. That at least gave the explanation to why he had been dressed in century-old clothing...and he hadn't been the only one. And then he told about his discovery of the dead solid-frozen man in the very bottom of the cave...and that was the time that I realized that the man, that the polar-bear had clawed on, had been my forefather Sir Thomas Baskerville. Now I was glad that we had given all of them a decent burial on the island itself and that at a place, where even the most hungry polar-bear couldn't reach them. Thomas told about the polar-bear attack...or rather the two attacks and then how he had crawled into safety and used the solid-frozen corps as a shield. And then he didn't remember anything more before he woke up in our ship, paralysed and unable to speak. And he told that he still couldn't remember anything at all from his past further back than the ship being caught in the ice and the huge explosion...and that only as fragments. Poor soul.....”_

“ _25_ _th_ _of March1922: Thomas didn't want to live in the facility any more and we have no right to keep him. He has grown fund of the free life on the moor and said that being in that cave for such a long time had made him long for wide expanses and an open sky. As far as I've heard he is living as a shepherd somewhere on the moor....”_

And then there wasn't more pages of that diary, except from a handwritten note:

“ _Baskerville the 10 th of October 1929: I'm glad we have kept some of the tissue and blood we took from that castaway 'Thomas'. We have searched the moor, but can't find him and he could be anywhere on this planet. Why didn't we see it? All his clever explanations...and he deluded us all. Why have we suddenly found out about him? Because we had brought the sea-chests with us and because some clumsy young lad dropped one of them hard on the floor, so it broke, and then we found Sir Thomas Baskerville's diary. I've known about his experiments, but as his journal was lost, we didn't have much hope to ever find out what had happened. And then this diary came forth, hidden in a secret room in that chest. Sir Thomas told about his 'creature', how it had escaped. How it had killed Lady Elisabeth Baskerville and their little son, how Sir Thomas had followed this devil-in-disguise to the Northern part of Scandinavia and further out onto a ship and out on the Arctic Ocean...and how they had been shipwrecked and how the 'creature' had made such an effort to make them both survive. Sir Thomas had finally acknowledged his guilt in making this creature evil and mean and how he had a part in how the creature had turned into a murderer out of despair. Sir Thomas and the creature made peace and then the diary ended...apart from an appendix written in a different handwriting:_

“ _You finally gave me a name. Your name. And now I am someone. Thank you for that gift. You gave it to me just before you died. You have been dead now for more than a month, and even if there is no food and even if the small amount of wood left hardly is able to give any warmth and barely any light, I'm still not dead. I don't even know why I'm writing this. No one is going to see it. But I have found a way to die. Even I wouldn't be able to survive that. I'm going to use the last wood to melt some ice. Then I'm going to soak myself completely and lie down in that crack in the bottom of the cave. There is ice there, showing that not even the summer sun can reach there, nor the warmth of the summer. When I'm totally soaked, I will be frozen solid and I'll allow myself to use your dead body as a shield. I have no wish to end up in the stomach of a polar bear if I can avoid it, even if I'm dead. You have told me that you had two regrets in your life: that you made me in the first place and that you abandoned me, when I needed you the most. I have one: that I let my anger loose on two innocent people. May God find it in his heart to forgive me._

_Thomas”_

“ _So you see why we have to find him. He would make the perfect super-soldier and we are going to need that. The Americans are experimenting and so are the Russians and ...God forbid....the Germans. He must be out there. And if we can't find him, then we'll have to find a way to recreate what my forefather did. Imagine...a soldier that cannot die!”_

And that was were the papers in the first folder ended.

Sherlock was silent for a while and John just waited patiently.

Then Sherlock lifted his head and said, “This is completely and utterly impossible!”

 


	4. The origin of Sherlock Holmes

John smiled, “Wait till you read the rest! But a very wise man once said to me ' _when you have eliminated_ _the impossible, whatever remains , however improbable , _must be the truth_ ' _and believe me, the contents of the rest of the folders do support, that this is in fact what happened.”

 

“But he was frozen solid for almost 100 years. He was frozen under primitive conditions. The cell-damage must have been enormous....”, protested Sherlock.

 

“I know what damage freezing does to living tissue, but who knows what Sir Thomas Baskerville did to that man. And remember, Thomas Baskerville had practised on sheep and smaller animals before. Is wasn't just a procedure taken out of the blue.”

 

And then John pointed at a piece of paper, written in Mary's handwriting: “You might need a family-tree to keep track. Or maybe you don't. I needed one anyway, so Mary made this:

_Sir Thomas Baskerville: born 1775, died 1816. Made the creature._

_His son Percival Baskerville: born 1810, died 1890._

_His son Victor Baskerville: born 1865, died 1930. Found the creature on Alexandra Island in 1920._

_His son Percival Baskerville II: born 1910, died 1990. The head behind the 'Baskerville experiments' together with Culverton Smith. The 'Baskerville experiments' that included making embryos that would have exceptional skills._

_Percival Baskerville II had a daughter, Caroline born in 1958. She is married and has moved to the States and has, as far as I could find out, not connection to Baskerville any more.”_

 

Sherlock read the list and then shook his head, but continued reading the contents of the next folder. It was medical journals and newspaper-cuttings and when he had finished, he just looked at John.

“You have read this too? And you understand the implications?”

 

“Every single piece...and yes...”

 

What the contents told was that the 'creature' 'Thomas' had disappeared out into the moors and had apparently lived there as a shepherd. He was never discovered by Victor Baskerville.

But there were several newspaper articles about 'that poor war-veteran' that had to live out there on his own. A lot of ladies had seen the war-veteran as a project, until he had told them, as he finally had met them, with rather harsh words, that he was fine and that he intended to live on his own, as he had seen enough misery among men during the war.

And then the ladies and the journalists got something else to speculate about. The 'dark clouds' of the upcoming war was to be seen in the horizon, even if Lord Chamberlain later, and after Hitler had attacked Poland, very naively had thought Hitler to be a decent politician and that Hitler would regard the "Anglo–German Agreement" worth a bit more than a piece of toilet paper.

 

Sir Victor Baskerville might never have found the connection between the 'war-veteran' and the 'Thomas' from the island. 'Thomas' wasn't the only war-veteran living out there on the moors after all......or Sir Victor might have found another solution. Sherlock found traces of that in the next bunch of papers.

 

He looked up, “When was the first freezer invented?” he asked John.

 

“ I don't know...in the 1920ties I suppose...”

 

Sherlock shook his head, “Household freezers around the 1930ties. Industrial freezers a bit earlier. But for scientific purposes... quite a lot earlier. In the 1860ties. The first devises, that didn't use ice but used a vaporisation system. A devise invented and being in use that early could explain why this man, Victor Baskerville's son, Percival Baskerville, did write this in the late 1930ties. Apparently Victor Baskerville died in 1930 before he could work more on his idea about 'super-soldiers'. Here, let me read this handwritten note for you aloud, because it fits with something I found, while I was on the Baskerville case for Henry:

Percival Baskerville had written this, apparently on a page in a note book: _“I know my father had got the idea in the 20ties, just like a lot of scientists all over the world, about making super-soldiers. And that he even had that insane idea, that a poor shipwrecked man should have been our forefather, Thomas Baskerville's artificial man. I've met the son of that shipwrecked man, whom my father saved, and the son laughed as I said that my father had thought his father to be immortal._

_The man, Jack, told me that he knew, that he had a resemblance to his father and unfortunately he had got scars as well. He was severely burned as a child. I remember something about one of the cottages on the moor catching fire on Christmas Eve many years ago. That must have been the occasion he was talking about. That might have been the cause of the rumours. Jack told me that he had met my father at a few occasions and that my father must have thought, that Jack was his father, because of the scars. And then Jack showed me his fathers and mothers graves in the graveyard near by. The war-veteran was truly buried there and with him my fathers insane idea about immortal soldier was buried too. The idea about immortal soldiers is crazy after all. Imagine what to do with them after the war had been won. What could such men do in time of peace? And what if they should turn against those who had made them? No, normal devoted soldiers are so much better and easier to 'make'.”_

“Obviously 'Thomas' must have decided to disguise himself as his own son at some time.”, John said and continued, “There is a news-article here from the 1942 about a graveyard with two empty graves. It says: 'Grave robbers on the loose on local graveyard?', so the graves that 'Thomas' "son" had shown, could have been empty, both of them.”

“But age must have caught up with 'Thomas' finally. This article tells about an very old shepherd, who died during a snow-blizzard in 1958.” John pointed at said newspaper-clipping. And then John frowned, and remembered Sherlock's question.“But what has that to do with freezers?” John wanted to know.

 

“Victor Baskerville must have tissue and blood left, from when they operated on 'Thomas' to make his scars less visible and people must have assumed that they were preserved in formalin or something like that. A preservation that would destroy the DNA, but....”

 

John understood and continued, “But if they had freezers as early as in the 1860ties, they must have had freezers able to freeze below 100 degrees Celsius...”

 

“And thus preserve the DNA intact. I found evidence of experimentation on embryos. Animal embryos, while we were investigating the H.O.U.N.D incidents. But even if I knew about the glowing rabbit, I never thought that they could have been that advanced. Not back in the 1960ties..”, explained Sherlock.

 

“That was the only connection Mary and I couldn't find. From 'Thomas' to the experiments in the late 1960ties and the head of them were Sir Percival Baskerville II, Bob Frankland and Culverton Smith.”, said John and continued, “But it makes sense if they had intact frozen material..”

 

And then Sherlock reached his own journal in the bunch of papers and read snippets here and there:

“ _6 th of May 1977. Surrogate mother Violet Holmes received embryo D and the transplantation is a success._

“ _Pregnancy progresses fine. No complications this time”_

“ _6 th of January 1978: Subject D born.”_

“ _10 th of August: Progress faster than expected. Subject D has started walking.”_

And like that the journal continued with dates and progresses with curves and graphs and descriptions of how Sherlock (Subject D) developed.

 

Sherlock closed his eyes and pushed the papers and journal away, further down on the duvet that covered his legs.

 

“This just confirms everything, doesn't it? That I'm a monster, a freak! Based on more than hundred years old DNA from a monster!”

 

John shook his head, “You are not a monster, neither was the creature. Just look at it as if....You know that book “Ender's Game”? Where people tried to make the perfect general to save humans from an alien race? And they had to try more than once before they made him...Ender. And he saved them all. I'm just trying to say that even if you were made in a laboratory, it doesn't diminish your value. You are important...to your friends. To us! To me!”

 

But Sherlock refused to talk more to John and Mary as well, as she returned shortly after. Just turned his back to them and pretended to sleep.

 

And over the next few days Sherlock drifted in and out of consciousness. Not able to distinguish between reality and false memories anymore. Reading about the realities behind his 'creation' hadn't helped Sherlock. On the contrary.

 


	5. Next step

Sherlock opened his eyes. It was still dark and he was in...in a hospital bed. But the sounds and the smells were different this time. Another layer of his crazy mind? He groaned.

Someone must have heard him, because that person entered the room and turned on the light. Just a dim one. It was John!

 

“Hey. Are you in pain? You groaned...”

 

Sherlock looked at him in confusion, “Why are you here? And no...I'm not in pain...only mentally. But I'm very tired...”

 

John smiled again, “I'm here because you are no longer in the hospital. You are in a private flat. It wasn't safe there....in the hospital. So we moved you.”

 

“We?”

 

“Mary, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, Sally, Lestrade, Anderson of all people and I.....and that is about the persons, I trust right now. Or rather trusted a month ago.”

 

“I know that I've teased you, when you repeated something I said. But I'm going to make that mistake as well. “A month?!”, asked Sherlock.

 

John went over to the bed and sat down, “How much do you remember?”, he wanted to know.

 

Sherlock frowned, “Mary at the hospital. I, telling her about my childhood. You bringing the journals from Baskerville. I read them. I, not able to distinguish between real reality and MP-reality.”

Then Sherlock frowned, “I shot Mycroft, didn't I?”

 

And that was the time where Mary entered too and she was the one to answer, “That was unfortunately real enough. But you are not being accused of anything since you were drugged up to your eyeballs. It was in the IV. And you had mixed something together at Baker Street, because you had decided that you didn't want to live like that any more. Those chemicals were interfering with each other and you lost your grip on reality and you were dying. Still are. Your vitals are plain out crazy. We are trying to get them normal, but as soon as one is looking all right, the others go out of balance. And then we decided that you weren't safe there. Too many governmental agents snooping around. So Mrs. Hudson's niece's ex-husband had this flat, and here you are.”

 

Now John interrupted, “And Sherlock....you have died so many times to save me. Couldn't you _live_ for me instead? I need you!” And John took Sherlock's hand a gave it a squeeze.

 

Sherlock looked away, but didn't remove his hand, “I didn't take anything at Baker Street. If I'm dying, then it must have been something that Culverton or others gave me. And it is all right. I'm okay with the thought of dying. I can never be what you need, John. You are going to manage so much better without me.”

 

“Sherlock, look at me...please.”

 

And Sherlock turned his head and looked. John did look...tired. Worn out. 'His bags under his eyes had bags' as the the expression goes.

 

“You look awful..”, Sherlock said, “My fault?”

 

“Oh, God no! It is just.....You have been practically unconscious, drifting in and out, for the last month. But physically you got a bit better .....I've just worried so much about your mental health. The things you said, before we got you out of the hospital. The reason why you didn't want to live like that. That you were loosing your mind. How much do you actually remember since Christmas?”

 

And then it came back to Sherlock:

“I shot Magnussen. Got exiled. Moriarty returned on every screen and the plane turned around. I had tried to OD and scared the hell out of Mycroft. Then I was returned to Baker Street and was on house-arrest, until it was found out that nothing was to be found out about Moriarty. No wonder.....Mycroft had covered his tracks very skilfully as the idea about Moriarty's return had been his. Then the evil spirit from my childhood came back., Culverton, and then things get a bit blurred: Mary gave birth. And I have two sets of memories about that. One with a hospital and one with a tunnel and some explosions. You had a baby-shower........and a lot of people were there and then.......I got ill. And so did Rosie. But we celebrated her christening.....and..”

Sherlock looked in horror at John as he continued, “Rosie got very ill. And I thought it was my fault and I came to your new house almost only in my dressing gown, because I wanted to save her.....”

 

“You had been drugged...and abducted.”, explained Mary, “And as soon as you were back in Baker Street, you fled and came to our new house. Your illness had nothing to do with Rosie's. She had cancer.....was born with it. And you were ill, because those 'treatments' that you got, to extract informations from your brain, they were driving you crazy. The scientists, among them Culverton, had to face that their experiment had gone wrong.”

 

John continued, “At that time we didn't know, that we couldn't trust Mycroft, so when one of his cars came to bring you back to Baker Street, we both, you and I, got into that car. Culverton showed up and said something, that didn't make sense to me at that time, but apparently made sense to you, as he scared the shit out of you...and then I followed you back to Baker Street. At that time we had still hope that Rosie could be cured.”

John took a deep breath before he continued, “You were taken from Baker Street and brought to a hospital. Thank God, Lestrade saw that, or else your brother might have succeeded in doing it secretly. At that time Mycroft was still keeping up appearances. And from that point things got rather......intense.

You escaped and walked the streets in a dug-induced haze. Got back to Baker Street , where Mrs. Hudson found you in the back yard. You were practically in-coherent and babbled about 'a woman in red, walking with a cane'. Mrs Hudson, bless that woman and her sense of danger, called _me_ instead of your brother, even if she knew that I was busy with Rosie, and Mrs. Hudson got you inside. Left you for a few moments as I rang the door-bell...and that must have been the moment, where we thought that you found the poison and took it with you. You were hospitalized again. This time in a public one. Not one of those 'private-clinic'- ones where the scientists from Baskerville could have their will. But the poison began to work and you were dying. Nothing dramatical or fast. You just....deteriorated......”

 

“I just doesn't want to live like that any more. The poisoning is fine. I don't mind dying “, explained Sherlock, “Nothing makes sense. I have so many layers of realities. Mary was in Morocco, disguised with a black wig and I was there, and you were shot and thrown in a well. Why should I have such memories? What was the point of giving me false memories of a birth in a tunnel, Mary in Morocco just to mention a few. What was the point? It made no sense...except that I had lost my only asset....my mind. And at that point I didn't even have the memories of Mycroft doing _things_ to me....”

Sherlock shook his head and looked at John, “I feel a bit better now. But what happened?”

 

“On the outside.... nothing. You were in that hospital bed. Weakened. Hooked on a IV, that we later found out was tampered with. You wouldn't believe, what was revealed during the last month! But more about that later. You had the weirdest hallucinations: talked about fighting a man and falling into an in-door swimming-pool. Shooting Lestrade and killing him in a weird flat filled with strange items. You walking under the shark-tunnel in the London Aquarium and it did burst and you almost drowned. You and me on a boat, that did burst into flames in the London Harbour.......all sorts of crazy things. And none of it happened for real, because you were in that hospital bed. My best guess is that that substance you took, or that someone gave you, somehow had interfered with that Baskerville-drug and just opened for all the false information-carrying memories...”

 

Sherlock frowned, “You mean.....those utterly crazy memories, they carried those secret governmental informations, that Mycroft and the others had put in my brain since my childhood?”

 


	6. The Dying Detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small bit borrowed from ACD's "The yellow face"...and then 'Hanson's syndrome' is invented by me. Beware: mentions of infant-death (Rosie)

From the previous chapter:

_Sherlock frowned, “You mean.....those utterly crazy memories, they carried those secret governmental informations, that Mycroft and the others had put in my brain since my childhood?”_

John smiled, “I don't know or claim to understand how your mind works. But normal mnemonic-technique works by imagining a room or a house and then place the things you want to remember in the rooms in that house. I've used the same technique, when I studied for exams. Or you can use a film, that you know well, and put memories in the scenes. I suppose that is how they did it to you. Your brain just did put persons you knew and cared about into those film-scenes as well. The one you described about Mary in Morocco and me thrown in a well. That I could recognize from an ancient agent-film. And the house with the swimming-pool, that was from a TV-series......as was the burning boat. Just that it was in a harbour in Miami in the series.”

 

Sherlock frowned again before he continued, “I think it makes sense. Storing informations so deep, that the carrying mind can't even extract them themselves......But...” And Sherlock frowned again, “But I was forced to choose between you and Mycroft. You were there. And I just _know_ that I shot Mycroft!”

 

“You did. But I wasn't in the same room. And it did not happen in some dungeon, but in the Diogenes' club.”

 

“Explain, please.”

 

“You had a period where you apparently got better. Just after you had been hospitalized. You were coherent and seemed sensible enough. At that time, we didn't know that you had poisoned yourself, or had been poisoned. And Mycroft contacted the hospital and insisted on that you had some very valuable information for him...”

 

“Yeah...I guess he missed to be able to just extract things from my mind. It was a bit strange that I do not recall any of that.”, said Sherlock, “And it was the public hospital, but the IV had never the less been tampered with. I suppose I was drugged.....”

 

“You must have been, but it wasn't to be seen on you, so you were allowed to leave the hospital...in a taxi....and was brought to the Diogenes' club. I'm not sure what happened, but Culverton came shortly after you had arrived and then the staff heard two shots...”

 

Sherlock frowned, “I don't remember Mycroft visiting me...and I don't remember the ride in the taxi. The Diogenes' Club, well, I suppose that investigations must have shown some secret compartments under cellar-level, because I do recall being in bunker-looking rooms. Right after I was brought back from Serbia. But those memories....being tortured in Serbia. They were false too.”

 

“What do you mean? I've seen your scars?”, said John and Mary nodded. She had seen them too.

 

Sherlock shook his head, “Jim shooting himself on the roof-top. Jim, being the criminal mastermind. Jim killing all those people in London. Jim doing all those insane criminal deeds. He worked together with Mycroft. Jim was a criminal, but he had never the brain to make such intricate machinations. Only one mind could match mine...and that was Mycroft's mind.”

 

“But...what would he gain from that?”, John wanted to know.

 

“More political power. “ _See...terrorists all over London. We do have to be allowed stricter laws against that. Diminishing of citizen's rights, to alleviate the work of the police...”_

The last sentences were said in a perfect mockery of Mycroft's posh voice.

 

“Oh...I see.”, said John, and continued, “The first time I saw Mycroft, my instincts told me that he was your enemy. I thought him to be 'Moriarty'....."

 

“And how close you came to the truth...”, said Sherlock.

 

John smiled, “Yeah...I should have trusted my instincts. They had never failed me before and never since. Even not with Mary...even if I doubted my ability to assess danger, as I failed to see who she really was, as she shot you and it was revealed at Leinster Garden...”

 

“Well, thanks a lot! And I'm still in this room!”, said Mary.

 

“But you were right, John. She wasn't evil the whole way through....and without you, Mary, I would have been dead by now.”

 

“So I'm forgiven?”, wanted Mary to know. Looking at both John and Sherlock.

 

John looked at Sherlock, “If you have forgiven her. The I can do the same...for real this time.”

 

Sherlock shook his head, “I understand why you panicked, Mary...and you did!......And I appreciate that you didn't kill me afterwards even if you had a lot of opportunities....”

 

“I only make the same mistake once. And it was a huge mistake to shoot you, Sherlock.”, said Mary, “And I think I've made amends by saving your arse afterwards, haven't I?”

 

Sherlock nodded, “Yes. It doesn't mean that I trust you 100%.”

 

“Understandable. But....” and now Mary turned towards John, “I do love you...in my own way. And I saw what Sherlock's, well, 'first death' did to you.....and I hated the thought of him being able to take you away from me. And then it turned out that he would rather rip his own heart out, than make you unhappy. How can I ever compete with a love like that? So, I am actually leaving. Going back to The States.....”

 

“To your daughter...”, said Sherlock.

 

Mary paused, turned around and looked at Sherlock with a frown and said, “How did you know?”

 

“It doesn't matter. I just hope that she is all right? No genetic disease?”

 

“No.....her father was not a carrier...and it takes two sets of defect genes to make that “Hanson's syndrome”...”

 

“And it is very uncommon among people of African origin.”, said John.

 

Mary paused and nodded, “I should have known, that you knew too. Yes....I'm going to take contact again. Even if it might come as a shock for her that her mother is white.”

 

“Wouldn't the fact that she is.....oh I hate that word....but that she is a 'mulatto'....had given that away?", wanted John to know.

 

Mary shook her head, “No...she isn't fairer than some of her cousins. So no....And I told her aunts never to tell her. But that was wrong. She needs her mother and I've missed her so.“

 

“And how is Rosie?”, wanted Sherlock to know.

 

John shook his head, “I love her but she is very ill. It is not only the cancer....but the scans have shown that there is so many things wrong with her. And I'm not a carrier of that genetic disease, so Mary did lie about that too.”

 

“I didn't know, John.”, said Mary, “And it was, oh it sounds so cheap....but it was a 'good-bye' shag. With David. I hadn't planned on getting pregnant. And I honestly loved _you,_ John. Not David.”

 

“Who turned out to have the ten first markers almost identical with mine”, explained John, “But as Rosie's disease was found out, the next markers didn't fit with mine DNA-markers.....even if they showed that David is a distant relative of mine. A cousin 8 times removed.”

 

“We had a row...”, explained Mary.

 

“But it doesn't make it easier to watch Rosie die, Sherlock.”, said John.

 

“And there is no cure?”, wanted Sherlock to know.

 

“No. The doctors can just make her last time a bit easier and painless.”

 

“Shit! I'm so sorry to hear that...John...Mary” , was Sherlock's remark.

 

“I know. And I don't want to talk about it now....but what was that about Serbia.....and Moriarty?”, asked John.

 

“It was the price I had to pay Mycroft for not having you 'removed', John. That I should let you believe that I was dead and that I should stay away for more than 2 years. You and I were getting too close and they were afraid that you would get suspicious and reveal all their governmental secrets. In my time away I was doing MI6 jobs and not disentangling the network of some insane genius. Just doing Mycroft's legwork. Finally they needed me back here but decided to 'teach me a lesson'. I should have known. But I was sleep-deprived, almost in-coherent because of famine and cold. But a dungeon? Iron-manacles? Whips? Rather old-fashioned. There are so much more efficient methods if you want informations. Water-boarding, chemicals...even the old-fashioned 'nail-removal' or 'finger-breaking' or electricity to the genitals. Nothing like that happened. I was beaten and felt pain....but if I had been severely wounded and if I had in reality had broken ribs, I would have been wounded so badly by you, John, that I would have been in a hospital afterwards. Now it wasn't worse than I was almost functioning after a few days. Even if the wounds did scar, they were not much deeper than skin, hardly into muscle-tissue.“

 

John and Mary nodded...it made sense. And it did lessen John's guilt just a little bit.

 

But what did it matter now? Sherlock was dying. He kept on claiming that he hadn't had time to take any poison or substance while he was at Baker Street, but his 'values' of his liver, his kidneys and a lot of the other bodily values were just so wrong and out-balanced, that John feared that Sherlock lied and had taken something, as John had had a suspicion about in the beginning...or even worse. That Culverton-Smith somehow had made a chemical timer-bomb inside Sherlock.

___________________________________

And then Rosie died. John was devastated. He had loved that little girl, even if she wasn't his, and he and Mary did find each other a bit in their grief over Rosie.

Sherlock couldn't attend the funeral. He was too weak and felt terrible, because he couldn't come.

_______________________________

The next day John turned up and told that Mary was on her way back to the States.

Sherlock looked awful. Pale, sweating and with dry lips. But no wonder as John checked Sherlock's values. They were just as out-balanced as yesterday and the days before that.

Sherlock asked if John was sure about Mary and John confirmed and told that he had even talked to Mary on the plane.

 

And it was as if it totally changed Sherlock as he heard that.

 

“Give me your phone, please, “ Sherlock said, suddenly filled with energy and John could only look in confusion as Sherlock opened John's and his own phones, removed the sim-cards and put them in two other phones and then dropped both his and John's phones into the water of one of the vases.

 

Then Sherlock made two phone-calls from his new phone and then he turned towards John, grappled a bunch of paper-tissues and rubbed his face. Then he turned towards John and smiled. The glint was back in his eyes. He looked suddenly one hundred percent more healthy.

 

“What the fuck?”, was everything John was able to say.

 

 

 


	7. The lying detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have borrowed a tiny bit from ACD's "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"

Sherlock pointed at the paper-tissues, that John now could see weren't clean any-more.

“Make-up. To make me look paler and with feverish redness on my cheeks. And bees-wax on my lips.”

And Sherlock turned his face so he could look John into his eyes and said, "I'm truly and deeply sorry. And I'll understand if you never want to see me ever again. But this was the only way. I have deceived you, again. Not because I wanted to toy with your feelings or hurt you.....and believe me, if there had been another way, I'll......”

 

John interrupted Sherlock and suddenly he felt so very tired and slumped down on the bed beside Sherlock, “This time I want to know both the 'why' and the 'how'......and how could you do this to me?”

The last part was almost shouted. And then John did hide his head in his hands.

 

Sherlock could see how deeply he had hurt John, because there was no anger in John, just hurt.

Sherlock got out of bed. Did stand on his legs, a bit wobbly, because he was thin and had been in bed for a long time. And moved so he could stand close to John in front of him. Then Sherlock knelt on the floor and , reluctantly, took John's hands, as if he expected them to be fists at any moment.

John lifted his head from his hands and looked into Sherlock's face and began to clench his hands...and noticed that Sherlock just, thin and weak as he was, had closed his eyes and stoically prepared himself for the blow.

John shook his head and dragged Sherlock up on his feet. Worrying because there was so little weight to lift and then John said, “I'm not going to hit you. I've done that a few times too many. And you have just accepted it. Even thought that you somehow deserved my anger and frustration and blows. Which it turned out that you most certainly didn't. I suppose you don't deserve it this time either. I just want to know why you found it necessary to tear my world to pieces....again. To betray the trust I finally had got back....again.”

 

Sherlock let go of John's hands and took John's face in his hands...and John remembered how he had done that during the case with the 'Blind Banker'...and if it hadn't been Sherlock, it could have been the beginning to a kiss. John removed Sherlock's hands...gently.....and said, “My hands are okay, not my face, thank you!”

 

“Oh..I'm sorry.”

 

And then Sherlock had tears in his eyes, “I am so so sorry. But this was the only way. You were too close to the person , I had to deceive...."

 

And then John understood, “Mary?”

 

“Anne-Gretha. The former CIA-assassin, now gone rouge, who worked for the highest payment or just for herself. Never just for others....never for ideals. Always for money. A woman with no moral. Super intelligent. Even surpassing me and Mycroft, and who's last employer was...”

 

John interrupted, suddenly seeing everything, “Culverton Smith!”

 

“Yes...and before that she worked for Moriarty and through him for my brother Mycroft and through him...back again to Culverton Smith.”

 

“I.....I don't understand..” _Back again to Culverton Smith_ ”? What do you mean by that? And were you not dying at all...or going to be bonkers because of your Mind Palace? What is the truth?!”, wanted John to know.

 

“I know I owe you some serious explanations. But can we please sit down? I'm rather weak after having been malnourished for more than two months now. Oh don't worry. I'm not lethally ill and it isn't worse than I can recover again....”

 

John interrupted, “And all your vitals, so unbalanced. They were a ruse too?”

 

Sherlock shook his head, “Not all of it. I was being poisoned by Culverton Smith...and drugged. I just had to keep up the charade as I escaped the first hospital. 'Mary' helped because she saw no reason to keep on trying to kill me, as her employer was dead and couldn't pay her. She has always worked just for the money...nothing else.”

 

Sherlock pointed at the door, where a woman appeared. She looked so much like Molly, that John for a moment thought it was her.

 

Sherlock smiled and made a gesture towards the woman, “Meet Marianne Hooper. Molly's twin sister....Not a pathologist, but a doctor.”

 

“You've always said 'it is never twins' when I have brought it up.”, John complained.

 

Sherlock smiled. “In this case it is. And the person you thought to be Molly after you all had helped me to get to this flat....”

 

John nodded and looked at Marianne, “It was you.”

 

“It was.” Marianne said, “Thank god Molly has always been jealous of you, John, and you two have seldom interacted. Molly had come to close to 'Mary' and we didn't dare to let her in on the secret. The vitals and all the test-results were falsified by me. I've double-checked and triple-checked everything that went into Sherlock's veins. I've monitored his kidneys and liver to make sure that they were unharmed by the poison and the drugs and the real results kept getting better and better. You are not out of the danger-zone yet, Sherlock, but you will recover...”

 

John frowned, “But if you have acted being Molly.... Where is she now?”

 

Sherlock had a hard look in his eyes now, “In custody. Molly has always had a dark side. Remember...she dated Jim Moriarty and he never threatened her...”

 

John was now confused, “But...but she helped you escape and get away from England. She helped you as you falsified your death...and you stayed in her flat after you jumped, before you could........”

And then John stopped, finally realising something, “Oh fuck. She has worked...not for Moriarty.....but for the real 'M'. For Mycroft.....your god damned fucking brother. That was why she slapped you in the lab, after I found you in that drug den. You were not allowed to ruin that precious brain, because you were too valuable to the government aka Mycroft-fucking-Holmes.”

 

Sherlock smiled at Marianne, “I told you. He is intelligent. It just sometimes takes a bit more time, before he realises!”

 

She smiled, “He really is. It has been a pleasure to finally meet you, John Watson, as a colleague.”

 

She gave Sherlock a hug and said as she saw John's face, “Oh...you don't have to be jealous, John. I'm a married woman and Sherlock is not my type.” and then she winked and left.

 

Sherlock looked as she left, “Such a skilled doctor. She saved my life....this time. All the other times it were you, John, who did that.”

 

Then he turned towards John, “And now I'm afraid we all have to help Mycroft.”

 

John looked at Sherlock, deeply worried, “Sherlock. You shot and killed Mycroft!”

 

“No, John. You of all people should know that you can shoot people without actually killing them!”

 

“What?!”

 

“At the Diogenes' Club I was drugged and everybody, including Culverton Smith, did assume that I couldn't distinguish between real events and those induced into my brain and being very close to reality. But I've always had a trick. It could be things placed the wrong place. A painting with a face turning to the right instead of to the left. A globe smaller than the real one. The more items, the easier to see the difference., because the false reality couldn't keep track of everything ...”

 

John suddenly understood, “That was the reason for all the clutter at Baker Street! You moved it around in certain patterns....and if they didn't fit, you knew it was false...”

 

“Exactly...”

 

“That was why you freaked out as Mrs. Hudson had moved your skull. Oh Sherlock...what a brilliant method to keep track. But what has that to do with Mycroft at the Diogenes'?”

 

Sherlock pointed at a set of journals, that John hadn't seen as he came into Sherlock's room, “I found more evidence at Baskerville. It was easier now, as 'Mary' had shown where to look. I have an inside accomplice at Baskerville. A woman who owes me several favours.....”

 

“Oh.”, said John, “Jacqui Stapleton, I suppose.”

 

“That very lady. And she found more to me...about those human embryos experiments. It was something you said, John, that made me think.”

 

“What did I say?”

 

“You mentioned 'Ender's Game'. I've read it. About 'Peter' being created as the first. He is the psychopath with no empathy. Then 'Valentine' was created. Too much empathy and not being able to be harsh enough and then finally 'Ender' or 'Andrew' who can be harsh and has empathy as well. It is rather funny that his surname is 'Wiggin', right?”

 

John smiled, “Yeah...what a coincidence.”

 

“Well. That science fiction story together with my medical journal from Baskerville, made me think and investigate further. Why was I called 'embryo D'? Had there been an 'A', and 'B' and 'C' as well? And the results are here John.” and Sherlock pointed at the stack of journals on his bed table.

 

“You don't have to read it. And I couldn't find evidence that could prove that Culverton Smith was artificially made too...”

 

John frowned, “Culverton?! But he just worked there...at Baskerville?”

 

Sherlock shook his head, “Culverton was from the 'Inner-circle' in Baskerville, because he WAS a Baskerville.”

 

“But.... Oh...I see. There were daughters as well. Of course!”

 

“Mary left him out of the family-tree on purpose. Of course she knew. Culverton Smith's mother was daughter of Sir Victor Baskerville, and she was born in 1915, five years after Sir Percival Baskerville, but she had married below her rank and had lost her title. Her son, Culverton Smith, was born in 1948. And worked close together with Sir Percival, his cousin. Culverton Smith soon became indispensable and I don't know, if he was made that way as an experiment or he was born that way...as a mutant. Maybe the latter by his looks. He didn't look quite human. But he had this ability to...the right word would be...persuade or even hypnotize people. Forcing them to do as he wanted. That could be the explanation why Sir Percival accepted that Culverton Smith and Bob Frankland did as they saw fit without interfering much.”

Sherlock paused and took one of the medical journals, “And that 'Ender's game' made me realise that I wasn't the only Holmes brother who was artificially made. Here..look. Mycroft's journal.”

And John first looked at a picture attached to the front. It looked old and resembled Mycroft. Only that that man on the photo was absurdly obese. (imagine a picture of obese Mycroft from TAB)

 

“Who is that person?” , John asked.

 

“Nobody ever learned his real name. It is the only photo ever taken. He had a code name. 'M' and he was the 'grey eminence' behind the British government for many years. From 1885 to 1915. A lot of people did claim that he alone prevented the WW1 from starting so soon as in the 1880ties and thus gave Great Britain time to make preparations. Look at him, especially at his nose and then tell me where from they got the genetic material they used, as they made 'Mycroft', because he was made, just like I was...and Sherrinford....and our sister that never made it.”

 

John nodded, “Embryo type 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. I get it. But what was that about a sister?”

 

“Apparently there was a girl born around the time of Mycroft's 4th birthday. But she never made it past the first month. I've looked in the journals. Violet Holmes and Siger Holmes had worked at another governmental facility, in Western England, in the 50ties and early 60ties. With radioactive materials. They didn't know so much about the long term effects of working with low-dose radioactivity and they both turned infertile. As did a lot of the young people working there. There are medical journals about that too. So when Siger and Violet wanted children, they were offered donor-children. Very hush-hush and secretly and they volunteered. Type A, Sherrinford, was made with a donor-egg and Siger's 'washed' sperm. Siger wasn't totally infertile, and Violet had been treated with hormones and carried the child herself. She was relatively young, 28, when Sherrinford was born. He was intelligent, but not a genius...and a psychopath. Except from the intelligence he could have been 'Peter' from 'Ender's Game'. So the scientists wanted to try again. 'Embryo type B”, based totally on the tissue of that mysterious 'M'. At least that is what the journal says. Violet Holmes carried that child too. Mycroft was born in 1971....and the little girl in 1974.”

Sherlock pointed at another journal, “And this is my real journal and not the falsified one. Violet never had another child after the very difficult birth of that infant girl.”

 

“But....it says in the other journal that she carried 'Embryo D'...you?”, said John.

 

“Falsified....and it was easier to let those two people, who now were so deeply buried in that whole affair, that they couldn't get out, ...to have them raise another child. Me. With Mycroft they had almost reached their goal. A 'human computer' and a person that wouldn't be compromised by too many inconvenient feelings. But they hadn't reached their final goal. Their 'Ender'. Mycroft would do as a politician, placed later in a fortunate position. Given time, he would be a valuable asset. And Sherrinford had lied to me. Both he and Mycroft had been tested and had used that 'helmet' too, just like me. Culverton could control them as well. He had a lot of time to condition their brains. You must remember, that even if he was young at that time, he was 20 when Sherrinford was born, and 23 when Mycroft was born. Old enough to be able to control them. I'm afraid that the girl would have been the final child. But as she died, they would have another try...with me.”

 

John had listened to Sherlock in silence and now he wanted to know, “But who carried you then?”

 

Sherlock pointed at the journal, “It doesn't say. Just 'woman D'. I'll probably never find out. And it doesn't really matter as she has no genetic connection to me...and supposedly never saw me...”

 

John nodded and pointed at the journal, “And you should be their final goal: the human computer. Not totally without empathy, but most of the time being able to be cold and distant. I'm sorry Sherlock, but it sounds like 'Mycroft' to me.”

 

Sherlock shook his head, “No...they made a mistake regarding Mycroft. A brilliant and fantastic mind. But bodily he was to weak. With a terrible tendency to be obese and thus die relatively early. 'M' wasn't more than 50 when he died. It is only Mycroft's iron will and strict diet that keeps him relatively slim. No...the scientists would have to make a stronger body to that brilliant brain. I don't know what went wrong with the girl, but something went terrible wrong. In the journal are mentioned a lot of difficulties...for Violet too. You must understand that when they worked with genes...it was like putting a lot of , let's say...different socks...into a big room. Turn down the light and send a blindfolded man in there and ask him to bring out a pair of matching socks. Haphazardly and randomly and with lots and lots of failed attempts. That the scientists managed to make children, that could survive at all, was a god-damned miracle!”

 

Sherlock paused and then he continued, “Thank God I had read 'Enders Game' and had come to think that Mycroft was just as much a victim as I was. Tell me, John, who had the most power? The man behind the British Government...or the man behind that man, controlling him like a marionette?”

 

John nodded, “Culverton Smith....and like that being totally safe. When no one knew, no one would try to remove him. I suppose there have been a lot of attempts of killing Mycroft over the years?”

 

Sherlock smiled, “Nearly just as many as on me!”

 

“And where is Mycroft now...and why isn't he safe?”

 

Sherlock tapped absent-mindedly at the screen of his new phone as he answered, “Culverton Smith had made sure that my brother would be framed for a lot of Culverton's crimes. So as Mycroft survived, he was brought to a secret governmental hospital, where he is in custody right now and might face a trial later. Of course this material I have here, including some of Culverton's notes and diaries.....and yes, Jacqui found some of them too, they would clear Mycroft of almost every accusation. But is it enough? Wouldn’t it be easier to let such a man disappear than admitting that you have been controlled through him, by an indecent, manipulative and presumably crazy little ugly man?”

 

John nodded and continued, “And that is why we have to move him?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

John shook his head, “Well, that makes sense, but why did you then shoot Mycroft in the first place, if you thought him to be just as much a victim as you?”

 


	8. Putting things in their right places

From previous chapter:

_John shook his head, “Well, that makes sense, but why did you then shoot Mycroft in the first place, if you thought him to be just as much a victim as you?”_

And Sherlock explained _, "_ Because, as things were, it was the only way to save him. Listen John: With certain drugs involved, it could be scopolamine or other with similar effect, Culverton could make me believe that I dreamt or hallucinated whilst being in my flat, and then in reality I would be out in the real world...re-acting...interacting.... doing things.”

 

“Like....killing people whilst being hypnotised or something similar to that?”

 

“Something like that. Culverton has only done that to me at a very few occasions, as I always have a break-down afterwards and afterwards the informations in my brain are very difficult to extract.

But.....as you recall, I was drugged up to my eyeballs as Mycroft sent for me and had me brought to the Diogenes' Club. Now you must understand that Mycroft had managed to slowly remove Culverton's 'tendrils' in his own brain. Actually starting with the Moriarty affair, where Mycroft directly disobeyed Culverton. Mycroft claimed that he had had no other possibility than reacting as he did. But it was a lie and Culverton must have grown more and more suspicious about Mycroft's obedience. And Mycroft didn't know that Culverton had used scopolamine on me or that I was being poisoned.

And finally, as I grew more and more crazy, Culverton must have realized that he had lost the game...and somehow have decided to start all over again. I can't understand how a man in his late sixties, as he is, could believe that he would still have time enough to create a new litter of geniuses. Unless Culverton of curse had discovered the 'Fountain of Youth'...and maybe he had found something. The 'creature' did get rather old and maybe Culverton was on the verge of discovering something there. But back to Diogenes' Club. Culverton must have decided that it was now time to end Mycroft and me. And what better way than making me shoot my brother and after that shoot myself?”

 

“Wow...what a cold hearted and evil plan...”, was everything John could say.

 

And Sherlock continued, “Culverton must have expected me to be so far out, that I would just obey him, thinking that I was just hallucinating. And then one thing more, John. Culverton had made sure, that even if I should get the idea, that this could be some sort of twisted reality and that I could get out of it, by threatening Culverton, he had made sure, that I would find it very difficult to do so.”

 

“How?”

 

Sherlock smiled, “Oh he must have been so pissed, as you had changed your hair and had grown it longer. John.....he had hypnotized me, made me see something differently. When I saw him in the twisted reality, I saw you!”

 

“You...you mean...that you could see people from the real reality and then see them in some twisted surroundings.....and then he had altered your perception of people too?”

 

“Not 'people'...just you John. When he was around and I saw him and I was drugged, I saw you instead of him. And like that he would be totally safe. He knew that I wouldn't do anything that could harm you....”

 

“Oh...But you shot him?”

 

“You weren't listening, John. I've learnt myself to put markers in the different realities. And 'you'...that is Culverton, would always wear something that would be a bit off and thus warn me. Do you remember that black jacket, you had, when we first met?”

 

“Oh that Haversack shooting jacket. Yes...I remember that.”

 

“And do you remember when you lost it?”

 

John frowned, “I think it was the case with the 'Burned Newspaper'. One of the cases we worked on...before....just before I married...”

 

“Exactly, and then I bought you a new similar one. Because it was my fault that it caught fire. The new one was black again...but this time with buckles on the collar.....and that was the mistake Culverton made. He remembered to change his own hairstyle....Oh God...he had to buy extensions to get the same length as you had got.! But he forgot to 'change' the clothes on the picture he used to create the 'John' in my head. The 'John' that he deluded me with. So...to put it short: The room in Diogenes' was a bit strange, and I was there together with Mycroft. And then 'you' entered, gave me a pistol and told me, that I would have to choose between Mycroft and 'you'. Thank God I had had a few minutes together with Mycroft before Culverton, that is 'John', arrived. I told Mycroft that I was drugged, that I knew everything, including Baskerville. Mycroft quickly understood that I spoke the truth and I asked him if he could trust anyone...and it turned out that Anthea... or Andrea as her real name was, could be trusted, as she was his wife!”

 

“His wife?!”, John almost croaked.

 

Sherlock just waved his hand and said, “I've had a suspicion for a long time, even if he did hide it in plain sight. His ring!”

 

And John understood. Even if the ring had been on the wrong hand...at least according to English tradition.

 

“And then I told Mycroft that I had to shoot him. Preferably without killing him and that Andrea should make sure that he was taken away and everybody should believe, that he was dead. It would require some acting skills on Mycroft's side, but I knew he could do it...and on Andrea's side too and she surpassed my expectations and was very convincing.....”

 

Sherlock paused for a moment before he continued, “Do you remember how Jim mocked us at the swimming pool? How he said that I could cherish the look of surprise on his face, if I shot him right there and then and how I wouldn’t be able to cherish it for very long, as the snipers obviously would kill us immediately after?”

 

John just nodded. Oh yes he did remember that incident all too well.

 

“I did cherish the look of surprise at Culverton's face, that was actually your face, as I shot him right after I had shot Mycroft in the chest. I shot Mycroft with something similar to Mary's signature shoot, but it could buy Mycroft a chance.....You see: I'm a better crack-shot than she ever was. I'm just as good as you, John. I had to learn fast, while I was...away. And I did not hit his pericardium, as Mary did with me. I nicked his liver, knowing that if he got help immediately, he would survive. And then I turned towards 'you', that is... not you, but Culverton, and did send a prayer to the God, in which I do not believe, that he was indeed Culverton and not you. And shot him right between his eyes with the last of the two bullets. The one meant for me....”

 

The two men sat in silence and then John said, “But if you had been wrong...and it had been me?”

 

“Then I would have killed myself!”, was Sherlock's short answer.

 

John reached for Sherlock's hand and gave it a squeeze, “Thank God for old jackets....”

 

And the two men smiled at each other.

__________________________

Sherlock told how he planned to 'tame' Anne-Gretha', “I've made home-less-networks in The States as well. After all...I lived there more than 10 months, and made a lot of contacts. Don't underestimate those people, John. A lot of them are poor souls and would like to be able to live another life, some are addicts that could use a lot of help, but some of them are resourceful people in their own way and do reject our way of living. They live on the streets of their own free will, because our orderly and neat and oh so controlled society does not fit them. It is amongst the latter that I recruit my helpers. I have used them to get to criminals. Even if they cheat and steal and sometimes kill, they have their own moral codex and there are just something, that you don't do. Don't rape....and don't harm children. That is why I got help from them to end some people, that I thought to be from Moriarty's network, but that I now know, just had been ordinary criminals that had gotten on the governmental blacklist. I sincerely do hope that they all deserved their destiny...and not just had got in the government's way...”

 

Sherlock paused and tried to recall all the people he hat made sure of ended in jail...or just were 'removed'. He had only killed a few men himself, but had asked others to take care of some killings too.

 

He now looked at John, “I always made sure, that they indeed had committed those crimes that they were accused of. After all...I was framed for a few crimes too, and would have felt very guilty if I had framed innocent people. But back to Anne-Gretha.....I've sent her a message that I have connections in all the big cities and some of the smaller too, and that I wasn't dying at all. That I knew everything about her past and connection to Culverton and that it would suit her to keep out of my way. And out of England...forever. And that she should know, that I knew about the whereabouts of her daughter and the rest of her family and that they wouldn't be safe, if she ever tried anything against me or mine. And then I did send her a file with a lot of surveillance-photos of her family and her daughter.”

 

John looked at Sherlock and actually didn't like the look of steel in Sherlock's eyes. But why not? 'Mary' had after all tried to kill Sherlock more than once.

 

“You are not going to...”, John began.

 

“Of course not. She is just a child...her daughter. And the rest of her family members are rather normal. No I would never........but you see. Anne-Gretha would believe that I would. And that is enough.”

 

John let out a breath, that he wasn't aware that he had kept inside. No of course, Sherlock wouldn't harm innocent people...

________________________

Mycroft was secretly removed from that governmental hospital he had been confined to, by Marianne, Mrs. Hudson, Sally, Lestrade, Anderson and John. An operation worthy of an Oscar. Mrs. Hudson distracted the guards with elaborated tales about her grandson and granddaughter, her knitting and her home-made cookies. And she almost forced them to eat some of them out of sheer politeness and the guards were sound asleep after only two of those 'delicious cookies after my grandmothers recipe'. Then the others got Mycroft out and he was brought to the same secret flat, where Sherlock was still being treated. The poisoning had done some damage and his long time of starvation needed qualified treatment too.

 

John was present as the two brothers spoke openly with each other for the first time.

 

Mycroft admitted that it had taken him some time to figure out, that the way Sherlock had been treated, had been so morally wrong.

 

“But my excuse was that I had been conditioned too. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me”, he said.

 

He admitted that he had had his doubts about Sherlock sparing his life at Diogenes', “After all, I had deserved it, if you had killed me.” , he said.

 

The two brothers did disagree on one point though. Sherlock was convinced that Mycroft would regain his position again, where as Mycroft was certain that he would have to keep a low profile, or even change his appearance and go undercover to avoid the upcoming trial.

 

“No..” had Sherlock said, and John did agree with Sherlock,.....”just let them figure out how to rule the country without you and me for....lets say a month....and they will beg both of us to resume our work.”

 

John frowned and said, “But Sherlock. You were just a detective....how could that indicate that.....”

And then John remembered what Sherlock had told him about his homeless network, so he continued, “Oh....I see. One ruling from the top...and the other one from the bottom of society. Brilliant!”

And then he turned towards Andrea and said as he pointed at Mycroft and Sherlock, “Well, who is then the 'Loche' and who is the 'Demosthenes'?”

 

(If you haven't read Ender's Game, then look for it on Wikipedia to learn a bit more about it)

 

She just smiled before she answered. She had read 'Ender's Game' too, “I think they both have streaks of both actually. Mycroft has more feelings, than he would ever allow himself to show and Sherlock can be cold and calculating. You knew that. You have seen that side of him, and thought it to be the only one. I think Great Britain would face a much worse destiny, than being ruled by these two men. After all, they were made to be like that. To be rulers.

 

And to Sherlock's utter delight and Mycroft's a bit sour acceptance that his brother had been right, it turned out that without Mycroft behind it all, things got rather catastrophic and after his recovery, thank God a lot quicker than when Sherlock had been shot, he had to work hard to get everything back on track again. He got his reputation and his office back and was asked...no 'begged'...to resume his work again.

  


And now Sherlock, a lot healthier Sherlock and a happier John, were back at Baker Street. John hadn't been in his and Mary's flat since she left and he had arranged for it to be sold, including the furniture. He had only brought with him a very few things. Not more than could be contained in two duffle-bags and a few moving boxes. All Rosie's belongings had been given to charity. And now they were here. Sherlock and John...sitting in their old and a bit saggy armchairs in front of the fire. But not everything was 'unicorns and butterflies and rainbows' as Sherlock would have said mockingly. There were a lot of 'elephants' that needed to be seen and acknowledged yet.

  


 


	9. Asexual Sherlock? Or just 'more elephants'?

Sitting in his well-worn armchair in front of the fire in the living room at 221B, John looked at the amber liquid in his glass, as he turned it and held it up against the fire. Then he took another sip and enjoyed the flavour that almost exploded in his mouth. Oh yes. Sometimes it was nice that Mycroft felt he owed Sherlock everything and had gifted John and Sherlock with a very nice and very expensive cognac....amongst other things.

And then John looked at Sherlock, who was sitting in his armchair and who seemed to be deep in thoughts. Not in his Mind-palace, just deep in thoughts.

 

“Why didn't you want me to touch your face, John?” Sherlock finally asked after more than 20 minutes of silence.

 

“Oh”... John thought , “...here we go. Time to face elephants!”

 

John took a deep breath, “Because I have to be careful around you, Sherlock. Not to overstep some boundaries. And then you would have to avoid overstepping them too. Regarding me.”

 

Sherlock frowned, “But we have touched before. It is not the first time I have touched your face. Not the first time we have hugged.....so why now?”

  
  


John steeled himself and explained, “Because before...everything, I could pretend that we were just flatmates, and platonic friends, but as we both have admitted that we love each other, then I would find it very difficult to...to control myself.”

 

Sherlock was openly confused, “But why would you have to control yourself?”

 

At that question John burst out laughing, “Oh my God. Sherlock...I always control myself around you. Not shouting at you....not yelling at you because of heads in the fridge...”

 

Sherlock interrupted him, “It was only once!”

 

John stopped, “Yeah...you are right. It was just once. And you were testing me, right?”

 

Sherlock smirked, but there was a slight flush on his cheekbones. If it hadn't been Sherlock, John would have thought him to be embarrassed.

“Yeah......but it was only a prop. Not a real head.”

 

John just smiled, “Well...the stench was real enough.....and that is not the point...”

John took another deep breath and drank the last of his cognac, “I think it is time to face the elephants...and there is more than one!....in the room. I love you Sherlock and if I don't keep a distance, I might....I might not be able to stop myself from kissing you!”

So...now it was said. It was out in the open space....the elephant had been acknowledged: John wanted more than just living with Sherlock.

 

Sherlock looked at John with confusion, “Why would that be bad?”

 

“For fucks sake. Sherlock, you said you are asexual......”

 

“It doesn't mean that I would mind being kissed! Or I think so. I've never been kissed before, by someone I love.”

 

And then John realised something. That Sherlock had thought John had been repulsed by the thought that Sherlock was made of the same material as the creature, Frankenstein's creature, whereas John had tip-toed around Sherlock, because he had been afraid of triggering some memories from Sherlock's childhood.

 

“You wouldn't mind?”, John wanted to know.  


 

“I said that, didn't I?”, was Sherlock's impatient answer.

 

And then John got up on his feet, grappled Sherlock's hand and dragged him up on his feet too.

“Come here.....and you say if it triggers something, right?”

 

And then Sherlock understood, “You are afraid that it might trigger something or that you might overstep my boundaries? That is why you have avoided...anything?”

 

“Yeah...the experiences in your past have been some rather grim ones, right? So I didn't want to add to the abuse....”

 

Again Sherlock frowned, “John, have you ever witnessed that I would do something, that I didn't want to do?”

 

“Several times, Sherlock. Several times. Where should I begin? You being used as a information-storage-place? Hmm? You having to jump and leave me and England? Hmm? You returning and watching me abandon you for that...that woman? You watching me getting married to that woman? You keeping away from me after the wedding, because I was an arsehole and told you to fuck off? You watching...from the sideline....how I 'dived' into fatherhood. Shall I continue?...”

 

Sherlock shook his head, “No...I think I got the message around your first hypothetical question to me.”

 

John lifted his hand and caressed Sherlock's cheek, “Listen, Love. I would not do anything to you, that would make you uncomfortable regarding feelings, that is. But something you have said and mentioned and...oh yes, because I can do that too, observe....I did observe something about you that make me question if you are asexual at all. You have had erections......”

 

“Just 'morning-wood' because of a filled bladder..”, said Sherlock.

 

John shook his head, “No...not that. After Irene drugged you. Remember I was the one who put you to bed. And then at the four occasions, where we had to share a bed, whilst we were on cases. Sherlock...I'm a doctor. I was a doctor in a war-zone, where soldiers sometimes were abducted and...raped...repeatedly. And some of your reactions reminds me of their reactions...”

 

Sherlock stood a while and thought about what John had said.

“You mean that I, because I was raped, was conditioned to not want sex. That I'm traumatised....and not asexual?”

 

“Something like that and if it was only asexuality, it would not be a problem. You would just be left....unaffected. But being traumatised.....I might trigger something in you.”

 

Sherlock smiled, “Well there is only one way to find out, isn't there. A leap out into the unknown.”

 

And then Sherlock took John's face into his hands, closed his eyes and carefully pressed his lips towards John's. Just a chaste kiss. Nothing more than he had done to Janine.

Then he opened his eyes, “Well. That is surprising. I didn't feel a thing, apart from the sensation of Janine's lips, as I kissed her. But kissing you feels different. Why?”

 

John had remained still and had not moved much, “How does it feel, Sherlock?”

 

“A tingling. A buzz and I'm slightly out of breath...”

 

John smiled, “Your pupils are dilated and your pulse elevated. What might we deduce of that?”

 

“Insufficient data. Experiment needs to be repeated!”

__________________________________

After several more kissing-experiments were conducted, Sherlock and John was now on the couch. Sherlock leaned up towards John, who had his arms around Sherlock.

“Who would have known that?”, said Sherlock. He looked as if he had been through a hurricane. His hair in disarray and his lips and cheeks slightly pink. John thought he had never seen anything more handsome....or maybe 'pretty'.....despite that was a word seldom used about men.

And now John had an idea, “Sherlock, Love, listen. I would like to...to make an experiment. But we'll have to make sure that you are all right with that. So...traffic lights: 'red'....and I stop immediately. 'Yellow'....I'll stop and you take your time to figure out if I should continue...and 'green'...everything is OK. OK?”

 

Sherlock lifted his head and smirked at John, “You are aware that you have chosen the safe-words amongst the BDSM-world? John...I might be a virgin and have thought myself to be asexual, whereas it now turns out that I might have been traumatized, but it doesn't mean that I do not know anything...”

Then Sherlock turned his face away again, now looking at the windows in their living-room and paused before he said, “'Green'...John...”

 

And John who had begun giggling just nodded and said, “Well...in that case. Close your eyes and just register what it feels like and please tell me...”

 

And then John moved his hand and touched Sherlock's bare chest under the T-shirt and carefully and only with very gentle touches, fondled Sherlock's nipples. Tugging lightly at them and caressing them. And he could feel how Sherlock reacted. Could hear that Sherlock's breath changed and how the nipples became hard. Sherlock even gave a very slight moan....just a little sound deep in his throat.

And then John stopped. Sherlock kept his eyes closed and just said, “I didn't say 'yellow' or 'red', John. I feel totally safe in your arms..... And I liked the feeling of your hands on my nipples!”

 

“Okay then. Next step. Move your hand and just put it over your.....would you prefer the word 'penis' or is 'cock' okay?”

 

“'Cock' is fine, or 'prick'...that is what you sometimes have called me, isn't it?”

 

And John began to giggle, “Yeah...I suppose so...”

_______________________

And like that John guided Sherlock, carefully, during the next weeks, towards finding out what he liked or disliked....and to find out if he was asexual or demi-sexual or 'just' deeply traumatized and 'conditioned' to be against sex, because of Sherrinford's rape and other people's abuse of Sherlock since his early childhood.

_____________________________________

Gradually and over the next many weeks, Sherlock and John discovered that Sherlock wasn't asexual at all, rather demi-sexual and had to have a close emotional bond to the person, he wanted to have sex with. They found some of the 'triggers' and Sherlock had panic-attacks, even if John had been so very careful. John felt extremely guilty afterwards and Sherlock wouldn't hear of that!

“For God's sake, John. You are trying to help me erase what that 100% psychopath of a petty excuse of a human being that my eldest brother was, did to me. And you have helped me so much already. I can stand being touched.....even with your hand on my cock. I can tolerate, that you give me a blow-job. Something I'm working at being able to give to you in return, despite Sherrinford having forced me to give it to him. Don't feel guilty about anything, please John. You are helping me so much.”

 

The first time John had seen and felt Sherlock's cock, John had been surprised to see that Sherlock, just like John, preferred to be 'naked' as in shaved, except from a small well-groomed patch of hair just above the cock. John couldn't help asking why, since it wasn't that common amongst their age-group. Younger people...most certainly, but not people around 40...even if John felt more like a horny teenager around Sherlock, as they had begun having sex. Sherlock just had to look at John and give him a hug and whisper into his ear: “Sex?” and a certain part of John was ready in a split-second. It was an agreement that Sherlock would ask...or it was a rule John had made to be sure that Sherlock wouldn't feel pushed. It was a bit silly, because as observant as Sherlock was, John had only to show a hint of interest and Sherlock would notice and ask John himself. 

So John had asked about the lack of hair and Sherlock had explained that he in his puberty, as the hair began to grow, had felt so repulsed, because it reminded Sherlock of Sherrinford's naked body, that he had removed the hairs.

“First with tweezers, but it proved not to be sufficient after a while and then I invented my own method.”

It turned out that Sherlock had indeed invented a mixture that removed the hairs and not damaged the skin. A bit like the 'sugaring' that others had invented.

 

“You know that you could be a millionaire, by selling this...” had John said and had decided that he would use that from now on instead of shaving.

 

Sherlock had been a bit surprised to hear John's explanation for his shaving-habits. That he had done it since he was a soldier in Afghanistan, because of the 'sand-mites' that would hatch from their eggs sitting on the pubic hairs like lice-eggs and then dig into the skin in the groin-area just like scabies-mites. Shaving the hairs would prevent the attack from those blasted mites.

“Honestly, Sherlock, I thought that you knew, had deduced....that I shaved my groin...”, said John.  


 

“Why?”

 

“Because you had mentioned that you preferred your doctors...me...'clean shaven'.”

 

“John...I didn't know. I was referring to your face...”

 

And then they had just looked at each other and had begun laughing.

__________________________

The first time John brought Sherlock to an orgasm, Sherlock was silent for a long time after that and had cried silently, and John had worried deeply that he might have triggered something. It just turned out that Sherlock had been devastated about the fact, that he hadn't dared to experience sex, before he had turned almost 40. Sherlock had laughed and cried with his head tucked under John's head and with his arms firmly around John's body and John had said something about, that he hoped that Sherrinford had suffered for a long time during that fire!

Sherlock had lifted his head and had shook his head and had said, “No John...somehow Sherrinford was just as much a victim as I was....as Mycroft was. The real culprits were my parents...and most of all Culverton-Smith. I'm glad I shot him. I could maybe just regret a bit that he died so fast.”

_________________

Not that everything after that were 'unicorns and rainbows'. There were things that would be triggers and that both Sherlock and John would either have to avoid or work their way around.

One of the first things John had said to Sherlock was that he never should blame himself for what had happened.

Sherlock had said something that made John think, that Sherlock somehow felt that he wouldn't have been raped and abused 'if he had behaved'.

They were on the couch as so often before. John leaned against the armrest of the couch, padded extra by the pillows and Sherlock leaned up against him. John's arms firmly around him and often Sherlock would hold on to John's hands. 

“Listen Sherlock. I'm going to tell you something from my time in Afghanistan: It sometimes happened that soldiers were abducted and delivered back again after a few days. The idea was that a wounded soldier is more....an inconvenience....than a dead one. But they were not harmed that much...physically. They had been raped by some of our Afghan enemies.....and now comes the point of my story. We had American soldiers as well as British and other European soldiers. And those of American origin and those from Eastern Europe were more damaged. They couldn't forget what had happened. They were deeply traumatized and had often to be sent home. Whereas those soldiers from Great Britain and Western Europe often could function perfectly again after a few sessions with the psychiatrists. The reason for this difference is that in America and some parts of Europe they have a 'rape-culture'. Normally it would be women, who were the victims....and it would be their own fault according to that male-chauvinist rape-culture: 'the women were drunk', 'were dressed too provocative', 'had been alone' and so on, as if it was reason enough to rape them, that they were defenceless. But we don't have a culture like that here in Great Britain...at least not now. And therefore the soldiers didn't feel that they themselves were to blame for.......well it is not nice to say it, but it was the way that the Afghans and the Americans looked at it.....for being treated like women...and raped....”

John took a deep breath and was ready to continue as he was interrupted by Sherlock, “I get your point, John, that I'm not to blame in any way. I get it. But it doesn't alter that I'm damaged.....”

John bowed his head and tilted it so he could reach Sherlock's mouth even if it was a bit awkward, “Not more than we can manage. I'm not undamaged either. We fit together, you and I.”

____________________________________--

There were things that John and Sherlock couldn't do...sexually. But as John mentioned, “It isn't everything that everybody likes anyway.”

But it didn't alter that Sherlock felt his damage even more so because he wanted to be able to enjoy everything sexually together with John. He wanted to be able to at least find out if he would like John's fingers or even better, John's cock, up his arse. To feel how John's cock would fit into his mouth and throat and he tried to explain it to John, “You know how my mind works. I want to overwrite what Sherrinford did to me. I want it to be what you and I do together. And I know that you say it is fulfilling enough to rub against each other, to stroke your cock together with mine with both our set of hands, to kiss, to snog for hours on the couch, to do almost.....everything. But as long as I haven't been able to give you a blow-job or have your cock up my arse....it is still Sherrinford's doings that 'are on that shelf' in my Mind Palace....do you understand?”

 

And John did understand. But he understood as well that before his doings could overwrite Sherrinford's abuse, they would both 'hit the wall' of triggering events. Even if John by mistake came a bit to close to Sherlock's entrance with his fingers while John was giving Sherlock a blow-job and would like to caress Sherlock's balls, Sherlock would tense up and often say, “Yellow”.

So what could they do? What could John figure out to do?

 


	10. Experiments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter. And it took me longer than expected. You know - real life interfering, but happy ending is ahead.

It was almost two months after they had begun their sexual relationship, that John one evening asked Sherlock to make sure that he was 'totally clean' and he should just be dressed in his pyjama-bottoms and a T-shirt and dressing gown, when John would come back after a few errands.

 

Sherlock had frowned, because he hated not to know, what John had planned, but John promised Sherlock that he would explain everything, when he returned.

Sherlock washed himself very meretriciously and to be sure that he was 'totally clean' he took an enema as well. Just to be sure. Sherlock had tried that before....the enema, because his eating-habits before John had lived in Baker Street and as John hadn't lived there any-more, had often caused it to be necessary from time to time.

 

So...as John entered the flat with a plastic-bag in his hand, Sherlock was waiting for him...a bit impatiently, sitting in his chair, but pretending just to be in his Mind-Palace.

John, who was better at reading Sherlock now, did just let Sherlock believe that John hadn't looked through that mannerism - and John just removed his shoes and began to unpack the contents of that plastic-bag. It was several candles, a bottle of red wine and a box of those extremely delicious Petit-Fours from a small bakery near Baker Street.

Sherlock frowned but before he could say anything John lifted his hand and said, “Let me explain something before you say anything, OK?”

 

Sherlock just nodded.

  
John went to the kitchen to click on the kettle and to find the fine china. And then he made a tray ready with cups, wine-glasses and a plate with those Petit-fours and carried all of it into the living room and went back into the kitchen to make the tea ready.

 

John could almost feel Sherlock's eyes burning into his back as he did all that, but not a question came over Sherlock's lips.

 

Then John fetched all the duvets and every blanket he could get his hands on and made a soft place in the middle of their living room and Sherlock couldn't help asking, “Are we going on a picnic, John?”

 

And the only answer was, “Shut up and just watch!”

  
Then John took the candles and placed them all over the room and lit them and a nice and not at all too intrusive scent started to spread all over the flat.

 

Sherlock couldn't help but begin to catalogue the scents: cinnamon, orange, thyme, lemon and a lot of others. All together making a nice connection to all things nice and warm and pleasant. A bit like the scent John had, of tea, his aftershave and shampoo and his own unique scent that always made Sherlock feel safe and cared for.

 

Sherlock had closed his eyes at a point and smiled because he thought that someone could make a fortune if they could capture that scent and make 'Eau de John Watson'.

 

John went over to Sherlock's chair and touched him and once again marvelled at how soft and caring and trusting Sherlock could look at him and John couldn't help smiling back.

  
Then John knelt on the floor between Sherlock's legs and took his hands, looked up and said, “Listen to me for a while without interrupting me.....and I'll give you the reason for this.....this picnic.”

Sherlock nodded and John continued, “I told you about those soldiers in Afghanistan, who had been captured and raped. Their therapists told them that they could have a normal sex-life afterwards if they would pay attention to a few 'rules': They had been raped by men. Therefore they should preferably have sex with women. As most of them were heterosexual it wouldn't prove a problem. Then they should alter the circumstances: they had been raped being naked, so they should wear some clothes. They should alter their surroundings. As they had been in caves or outside, they should just move their activities to the bedroom or into the bed.....and they should change the scent as well. So...”

 

John took a deep breath, “I've altered what I could alter: I have lit scented candles. I'll serve tea, wine and cakes. In the living-room and you keeping your clothes on and me being almost naked. Do you get it?”

  
Sherlock smiled and bent forward and kissed John, “I'm not an idiot.....and yes. I see what you are doing. And I think it could work. What do you plan to do? And get up from the floor. Sitting in that position would make you hate your legs afterwards.”

  
John smiled back and said, “Then come down to sit on the duvets and blankets with me.” And then he began to explain, “It happened in Afghanistan. A few months before - before I was shot. You must understand that we sometimes did some silly things....just in order to feel alive.”

  
“You don't have to explain, John. I understand..”, said Sherlock.

  
John took a deep breath and said, “Well. Yes.....so. To make a long story short: I had made a bet with one of the guys from America. And I had won. He had acknowledged that I was the winner and had told me that my reward would be...private. I thought first that he would give me a blow-job, but he had asked me to be totally clean and therefore I had taken an enema. I had told him, though, that I under no circumstances were going to let him put anything up my arse...”

 

“But you let me?”, Sherlock was confused.

 

John smiled, “It is because I like doing it with you, you idiot. This was just a silly bet.....I had been drunk when we made it and I had to drink to be able to 'receive my award'. I didn't want to chicken out though, and found it fitting that he should be humiliated a bit. He had bragged so much and I had proved him so wrong. So I just thought I had earned that sexual favour.”

 

John took a deep breath and continued, “He gave me an exquisite experience......and made me come in 8 minutes – untouched!”

 

John took Sherlock's hands and looked at him and said, “Do you know what 'rimming' means...and I am not talking about a way of conserving food.”

  
Sherlock frowned and closed his eyes in order to remember and then he opened them with an “Oh...” and his cheeks had gotten a faint rose hue.

  
John smiled, “You do know, then. That is what I plan to do to you. It is something that you have never experienced before and.....”

 

Sherlock frowned, “But you haven't done it either?”

  
“Well...”, and now it was John's turn to blush a bit, “I have been with women....and I have used my tongue, so....”

 

“John. You don't have to apologize for your former sex-life. I have told you that it is OK.”

  
  


And then John got up on his feet and began to undress. Sherlock was told to remove his pyjama bottoms. Either totally off or only partially, and keep both the T-shirt and the dressing gown on. He chose to take the pyjama bottoms off. He didn't feel naked, even if his lower part of his body was partly exposed. The dressing gown was enough to ensure that. Just like the sheet had been so many years ago.

 

Sherlock sat down on the duvets and John joined him, only clad in his own dressing gown. Sherlock was told to lie down on the duvets and pillows and John sat down beside him. And he reached for the tea and a Petit-Four. And then he fed Sherlock. He kissed him and gave him small pieces of cake. Sherlock just watched and opened his mouth like a baby-bird being fed by its parents. John took sips of the wine and fed Sherlock that wine with kisses as well.

After they had kissed a lot and eaten half of the cakes, Sherlock was asked to lie down on his stomach and to put a pillow under his hips.

  
John almost lost it when Sherlock was sprawled out like that: hugging a pillow, with his long legs a bit bent and spread and the elegant curve of his back and arse just covered in that thin blue silk.

  
Then John knelt behind Sherlock. Moved his hands down under the blue silk and caressed Sherlock's thighs and felt how Sherlock shivered a bit.

  
“You do remember your safe-words......and that as soon as we come within a mile's range of your triggering points. Promise?”, John said.

  
Sherlock turned his head and looked at John and just said, “I promise! But no need for that. I trust you!”

  
Then John crawled in under the blue dressing gown and took a firm grip around the arse-cheeks of Sherlock's surprising generously shaped arse and did spread them a bit. He couldn't see so much in the blue half-light under the dressing gown, but he could see enough.

 

John licked a broad stripe from Sherlock's balls, all the way over that little furled opening and up to the place where the lower back began......and Sherlock moaned.

  
And then John continued his ministrations: altering between licking and kissing and probing with his tongue. Sucking a bit at the puckered skin around Sherlock's opening. And John found, that his skill-set from using his tongue on a woman's clitoris and vagina wasn't that different from licking and nibbling and sucking and probing with his tongue at Sherlock's furled opening. The only thing John could taste was a very faint hint of the soap that Sherlock had used. Nothing worse......and his actions soon made Sherlock leak pre-come, even if John didn't touch Sherlock's cock or prostate at all.

The small whimpers and moans that Sherlock uttered made John achingly hard himself and he wondered if he could come from that alone himself as he continued to lick and kiss and actually fuck Sherlock with his tongue.

  
Sherlock moaned and bucked and he moved his hands, so he was just resting on his shoulders. Arching his back and presenting his arse even more towards John, almost loosing his ability to speak, and his hands moved and helped John spreading his arse-cheeks even more, as he panted, “John...John...please. Use your...Oh God....fin....fingers. Fuck me....please!”

 

And John just hesitated for a few seconds and then he grappled for the lube that he had fetched together with the pillows and duvets. He didn't hesitate more as Sherlock begged again, “Please.....it is so different. I want your fingers...and your big fat cock...please...please...”

  
  


And who was John Watson to say 'no', when Sherlock begged so nicely? This was not what John had planned, but he wouldn't complain.

  
  


First he slipped one finger inside. Crocked it a bit so he could reach Sherlock's prostate through the thin wall and Sherlock bucked and panted and gasped; “More...for God's sake. More, John!”

 

And John added two fingers, gently scissoring them and coaxing the muscle to relax and open up. He bent down a bit and used his tongue as well and appreciated that the lube had a nice flavour. Not that it would have stopped him otherwise, because the sounds that Sherlock made, were almost enough to make John come.

  
And finally John felt that Sherlock was ready. John thought for a moment to ask Sherlock if it was allright, but gave up the thought. Sherlock most certainly wanted this and he was ready.

  
“Turn around, Love”, said John, “I want the first time to be face to face.”

 

And Sherlock obeyed. Grappled his own legs and held them and almost bent himself in half to give John better access.

John positioned his cock's head at Sherlock's opening and allowed himself to admire how turned on Sherlock was. He had seldom seen Sherlock's cock so engorged and so dripping.

  
“Touch yourself, Love”, John ordered and as soon as Sherlock's hand was on his own cock and began to stroke, John pushed inside........and it was heaven. To feel that warmth and tightness around his cock was out of this world and as Sherlock impatiently pushed himself further down until he could feel John's balls on his arse, John had to stop for a few seconds...or he would have ejaculated right there and then.

  
They soon found a rhythm and as Sherlock demanded, “Harder...harder and faster. I am not made of glass!” John was more than happy to obey. When the orgasm did build in both men, John's deep trusts became shallower and shallower and Sherlock had put his feet down on the mattress to be able to move better. Sherlock grappled at John's hips and moved John...until the wave finally broke and both men came almost simultaneously with deep moans.

  
John remained inside Sherlock, because both men wanted to ride the after-chock still being closely connected and Sherlock had wrapped his long legs around John, reminding John of an octopus and John wondered for a few seconds about how many legs Sherlock actually had.

  
  


When they finally came to their senses, Sherlock kissed John and said, “Thank you..”

  
  


And John looked as his lovers gorgeous face and asked, “I did manage to overwrite the bad experiences?”

  
  


“Of course you did, you idiot. How could you not? I should have known that being an adult with a prostate, this would be so totally different. I don't know why I hadn't thought about that.”

  
  


John snuggled closer to Sherlock, “That is because you are an idiot too.”

  
__________________________________________

 

It didn't mean though, that Sherlock didn't have triggers any-more. Giving John a blow job took just one try, where Sherlock was totally in charge, before they could write it down to be a yes. Especially because Sherlock could suppress his gag-reflex. John should have know that when Sherlock put his mind to do something, he would excel at that. Of course he would!

But it took several more 'experiments' before Sherlock could 'bottom' in their bed, instead of in their living room or in their kitchen and Sherlock would prefer to wear at least a bit of clothing.

 

That led them to experiment with men's lingerie and John found out that it was most certainly a turn-on for him. Those long legs and that generous arse clad in black silk-stockings and lace. John loved it....even if he sometimes almost would hate Sherlock on a crime-scene, when Sherlock would whisper into John's ear what he was wearing under those bespoke trousers and John would find it very hard to hide his arousal and at a few occasions he had dragged Sherlock into the nearest loo in the Scotland Yard building and fucked him against the wall in one of the stalls. Of course it ruined those delicate and expensive lace-pants, because John had no patience at that point and had just ripped them apart, but Sherlock always said that it was worth it. And he totally knew what he did, that git. Why should he otherwise always be prepared and have lube in his pockets? Often several packages and sometimes condoms, if they were not sure that they had time to clean themselves.

 

“One of these days, we will get abducted, while you are wearing those lingerie-items, and have your pockets stuffed with lube and condoms and we will get killed, because I will be to God-damned distracted and I'll be thinking with my prick instead of being able to defend us, “ would John grumble and Sherlock would smirk and lower his voice to a deep baritone, that would as always go directly to John's groin and say, “But what a way to go!”

  
____________________________________

Of course that never happened and those two idiots would finally marry and retire to Sussex. But that is another story.

  
  


  
  


  
  


 


End file.
